Binance Freezes Hamas Militant Crypto Accounts

Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has taken a firm stance against terrorism, freezing accounts tied to Hamas militants at the request of Israeli law enforcement authorities.

The decision, communicated via a WeChat post by Yi He, co-founder of the exchange, underscores the exchange’s commitment to global regulatory compliance.

Freeze Targeted at Hamas Militants Not Palestinian Populace

The freeze, as clarified by Yi He, is explicitly targeted at Hamas and not the broader Palestinian populace. This delineation is pivotal, as she emphasized,

Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the United Nations. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.

He elaborated on the rationale behind this action, pointing out that no trading platforms can afford to reject such requests. Her words were clear:

Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local militant group. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Hamas is not Palestine; the freeze is targeted towards Hamas, not Palestine.

The move comes in the wake of an October 10 report by local news outlet Calcalist, which revealed that Israeli authorities, with the cooperation of Binance, had frozen crypto accounts believed to be linked to Hamas militants. It is alleged that these accounts were being used to amass funds for war-related activities via social media channels.

Crypto Aid Israel

Notably, just a day earlier, the cryptocurrency community in Israel launched a charitable initiative called “Crypto Aid Israel” to support civilians affected by the ongoing conflict.

This initiative accepts donations in Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH), and other ERC-20 tokens like Tether (USDT). Impressively, the campaign has already garnered close to $50,000 in crypto donations, demonstrating the power of blockchain and cryptocurrency to facilitate humanitarian efforts.

Yi He offered reassurance that ordinary users, including Palestinian civilians, would not be impacted by these measures. Drawing parallels to previous conflicts, she stated,

Referring to earlier incidents, when war broke out before Russia and Ukraine, we did not freeze the accounts of ordinary Russians.

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