Former senior Mossad official, Udi Levi, said in an interview with the BBC that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu missed an opportunity to disrupt the flow of funds to Hamas, years before the October 7 massacre.
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Levi, who served until 2016 as the head of a unit dealing with economic warfare against terrorist organizations, advised Netanyahu to economically weaken Hamas, believing it would hinder the group's military buildup.
He said that he repeatedly told Netanyahu that Israel has the means to undermine Hamas "solely through the use of economic tools." According to Levi, he never received a response from Netanyahu to his proposal.
Levi believed that had Netanyahu acted, a great deal of money would have been prevented from reaching Gaza. "The monster that Hamas built probably [wouldn't be] like the same monster that we faced on October 7th." He said Hamas needed billions and not millions to build the network of tunnels beneath the Strip and to pay for an estimated 30,000-strong military force.
He said he had discussed a specific funding source with Netanyahu in 2014, which Israeli intelligence purportedly identified as a multi-million-dollar investment portfolio controlled by Hamas and operated from Turkey.
Some 40 companies across the Middle East and North Africa are believed to be in the portfolio, including Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Sudan, Egypt, the Gulf and also Turkey, Panorama said. "The alleged investments include everything from road construction, pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to tourism, mining, gold prospecting, and luxury real estate projects."
Billions more had been provided by UN agencies, the EU, the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, and numerous charities. All intended for humanitarian purposes, the BBC said but added that there is no way to verify how much of it was diverted for Hamas's military purposes.
"We discussed Qatar and Iran as the main sponsoring entities," Levy said regarding Hamas funding sources. He emphasized that "in a certain sense, Turkey is even more crucial, as it represents a central and critical point for Hamas in managing its financial infrastructure." According to the BBC, The Prime Minister's office did not respond to Levy's allegations.