Crypto exchange Binance has frozen accounts linked to the Palestinian militant group Hamas following requests from Israeli law enforcement officials.
The freeze specifically targets Hamas and not the Palestinian people overall, according to Binance co-founder Yi He in a WeChat post on October 10th.
“Hamas is a designated terrorist organization by the United Nations. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests,” He stated. “This is not something Binance can decide on its own.”
He explained that no trading platforms can refuse such requests from authorities. “Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local militant group. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Hamas is not Palestine; the freeze is targeted towards Hamas, not Palestine,” he said.
Earlier on October 10th, Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported that Israeli officials froze the crypto accounts of Hamas militants with Binance’s help. Law enforcement claims the accounts were collecting war-related funding through social media.
The previous day, it was reported that Israel’s local Web3 community launched a charity campaign called “Crypto Aid Israel” to assist Israeli civilians affected by the conflict. The initiative has received nearly $50,000 in Bitcoin, Ether, and other ERC-20 token donations so far.
He suggested ordinary users would not be impacted by the freeze, including Palestinian civilians. “Referring to earlier incidents, when war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, we did not freeze the accounts of ordinary Russians,” He stated.
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