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Texas Senator Ted Cruz has introduced a bill that would sanction every Hamas member known to the U.S. Treasury Department within two weeks of its passage and freeze Iran’s assets overseas.
"The Biden administration has been indirectly and even directly funding Hamas and Hamas’s financiers in Iran," Cruz told Fox News. "They poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, despite knowing it would benefit Hamas terrorists."
The bill would sanction Hamas and its affiliates for using human shields, while also going after Hamas' safe havens in Qatar and Turkey. The bill would also impose sanctions on every hotel, landlord or bank that provides services to Hamas militants and its leaders.
The 'Hamas Sanctions Act' would also require President Biden to deliver a regular update on whether Qatar or Turkey qualify as state sponsors of terrorism for hosting Hamas.
In a statement, Cruz said:
“The United States should use every resource at our disposal, including our diplomatic power and sanctions leverage, for as long as it takes, to ensure that our Israeli allies are able to utterly eradicate Hamas. Instead of countering Hamas and its enablers, however, the Biden administration has spent the last two and a half years indirectly and even directly funding them. The administration poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the Gaza Strip, despite knowing this would benefit Hamas terrorists, and allowed roughly $100 billion to flow to the Iranian regime, which they knew the Ayatollah would pass along to Hamas. The administration also refuses to enforce sanctions against Hamas for terrorism, for the use of human shields, or against those who violate terrorism sanctions and provide Hamas with financial or material support. The Hamas Sanctions Act would end these catastrophic policies, prohibit the administration from allowing further funds from flowing to Hamas and Iran, and end the ability of provide Hamas leaders with safe haven in violation of sanctions.”