Following Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel, authorities from the United States and Qatar have decided to stop Iran from utilizing a $6 billion humanitarian assistance fund, according to a news report on Thursday.
In a recent US-Iran prisoner swap arrangement when five US inmates were also freed by Iran, money was moved to Iranian accounts in Qatar.
However, according to a report from The Washington Post published on Thursday, a decision was made to stop access to the funds as President Joe Biden comes under increasing criticism over the issue due to worries about Iran’s ties to Hamas.
Since Hamas fighters overran Israel’s southern border over the weekend, Tehran, which supports the Islamist group militarily and financially, has come under severe scrutiny.
Hamas gunmen killed some 1,200 people in Israel and took about 150 hostages in their surprise assault on Saturday. Israel retaliated by raining air and artillery strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza for six days, claiming over 1,350 lives.
“We have strict oversight of the funds and we retain the right to freeze them,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told a press conference in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
The White House added in a separate briefing that “every single dime of that money is still sitting in a Qatari bank.”
“Not one dime of it has been spent,” according to National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, adding that the US is watching the account closely but refusing to speculate about “future transactions.”
Prior to this, US officials claimed they had not seen any intelligence indicating Iran had been involved in the planning or preparation of the Hamas assaults.
The Washington Post reported that Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo informed Democrats in the House of Representatives that the Iran monies are not “going anywhere anytime soon,” and that the statement was first reported by Punchbowl.
The Treasury Department chose not to respond to a request for comment.
As the confrontation continued, some US senators demanded that the $6 billion in Iranian oil earnings be re-frozen.
According to the Biden administration, the funds can only be used for humanitarian purposes.
