“The United States must stand with Israel for as long as it takes to utterly eradicate Hamas”
Texas Insider Report: WASHINGTON, D.C. – "The Biden 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," said Sen. Ted Cruz earlier today, introducing the Hamas Sanctions Act, which he said represents the first piece of legislation needed to comprehensively target the internationally recognized terrorist group.
The legislation would impose sanctions on Hamas, its members and affiliates, as well as other countries that provide funding and territory for Hamas operations.
“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," said Cruz, who serves as a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"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,” Cruz said.
- Sanction every Hamas member and affiliate known to the U.S. within 15 days.
- Block Hamas’ funding by –
- Prohibiting U.S. taxpayer money from going into the Gaza Strip, including by rescinding the Biden administration’s ability to give itself exemptions from anti-terrorism laws.
- Preventing Iran from accessing and raising revenue.
- First, prevents the Biden administration from unfreezing Iran’s sanctioned overseas accounts, including the known $6 billion and $10 billion accounts in Gulf banks.
- Second, the bill imposes sanctions on Iran’s “ghost fleet” of oil tankers, which it has used to raise $80 billion since President Biden took office.
- These sanctions also target tankers’ owners and operators. It then requires the Biden administration to work towards de-certify and de-flag those vessels.
- Block Hamas’ ability to find safe havens abroad, including in Qatar or Turkey, by imposing sanctions on hotels, landlords, banks, and similar businesses in allied countries that provide services to Hamas leaders, and by requiring determinations whether such countries qualify as state sponsors of terrorism for hosting Hamas.
- Strengthens and enforces sanctions law against the use of human shields that Sen. Cruz authored and passed into law in 2019.
It would also prevent the Biden White House from ignoring the 2019 law, as they have been doing.
- Read the bill here.
