Cryptocurrency exchange Binance has frozen accounts linked to Hamas militants at the request of Israeli law enforcement.
According to He Yi, co-founder of the exchange, in a WeChat post on October 10, the freeze was targeted at Hamas and not the Palestinian people. As Mr. He said:
“Hamas is a United Nations-designated terrorist organization. Therefore, any organization, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate when receiving a freeze request. This is not something that Binance can decide on its own.”
He Yi further explained that no trading platform can refuse such a request: “Palestine has an organized government. Hamas is a local radical organization. They kill civilians; that’s the problem. Hamas is not Palestine, But Palestine. The freeze is for Hamas, not Palestine.”
Earlier on October 10, local news outlet Calcalist report Israeli officials froze the crypto accounts of Hamas militants with the help of Binance. Law enforcement authorities claim that terrorists use these accounts to raise war-related funds through social media.
The day before, Cointelegraph reported that the local Web3 community in Israel launched a charity event to help Israeli civilians affected by the ongoing conflict. The program, called Crypto Aid Israel, supports donations in Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH), as well as other ERC-20 tokens such as Tether (USDT). The campaign has received nearly $50,000 in cryptocurrency donations since its launch.
He Yi said that general users will not be affected by the ban, including Palestinian civilians. “Referring to previous incidents, when Russia and Ukraine went to war before, we did not freeze the accounts of ordinary Russians,” she said.
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