The Israeli police cyber unit Lahav 433 has frozen Hamas’ cryptocurrency accounts used to raise donations on social media. The Times Of Israel reports this: The Times Of Israel.
The outlet, citing the police, said the blocked addresses had been in use since the start of the armed conflict on October 7.
Lahav 433 works with the Ministry of Defence, Shin Bet (Shabak) and other security services to curb Hamas financing. Binance also helped Israel by freezing assets, the article states.
A platform representative, in a ForkLog interview, did not directly confirm cooperation with the cyber unit. The company said that “over the past few days the team has been working around the clock in real time to support ongoing efforts to counter terrorism financing.”
“The information we use to identify individuals, addresses and infrastructure connected with specific organizations is based on intelligence data provided by authorities, and on tools developed by us and our partners,” Binance explained.
According to the media, Israeli authorities also cooperated with the British police to reach the alleged terrorist accounts at Barclays Bank.
The local Web3-community voiced support for the country, establishing the Crypto Aid Israel fund to raise funds for humanitarian aid to citizens. Asset management is handled by custodian Fireblocks.
The alliance includes MarketAcross, Collider Ventures, CryptoJungle, Israel Blockchain Association, and others. Dozens of banks and regulators are cooperating with the organisation, providing a “bridge” to move digital assets to traditional accounts.
Representatives of the fund stressed that a strict policy has been adopted requiring at least four of seven signatures for withdrawals.
According to on-chain data, users have already sent a total of 0.1 BTC (about $2,765 at the time of writing) and 12.7 ETH (about $20,585).
In June, the Israeli government confiscated funds from cryptocurrency wallets linked to financing Hezbollah and the IRGC’s Quds Force.
According to the media, since December 2021, local authorities have blocked 189 accounts on the Binance exchange, presumably linked to the groups ISIL and Hamas.