EU balks at US, Israeli pressure for new Hamas sanctions

Israel and the United States are piling pressure onto the EU to impose new sanctions on Hamas in the wake of the October 7 attack on Israel in which some 1,400 people were killed.

Some EU countries are pushing back, with Portugal’s foreign minister telling POLITICO that new sanctions were a “diversionary tactic” compared to the larger question of statehood for Palestinians.

“This is not a central problem,” João Gomes Cravinho said of the proposed sanctions. “We all agreed that Hamas is a terrorist organization [and that] Hamas has committed absolute atrocities.”

“The bigger question of developing a Middle East in which Hamas no longer exists, it will not be achieved through a combination of military strikes and sanctions,” he added. “It has to come about through the development of a settlement that provides the Palestinians with their own state and with all the characteristics of a state recognized by the international community.”

Reflecting the Portuguese minister’s comments, some other diplomats said the sensitivity of the Israel-Hamas war would make it hard to secure unanimous backing for new sanctions — which is already listed as a terror organization by the EU as well as by the U.S. — while others claimed the EU lacks specific evidence against individual Hamas leaders.

The diplomats, like others in this piece, were granted anonymity to speak freely.

In the wake of the October 7 massacre, the United States has led the charge by imposing sanctions against 10 key Hamas operatives as well as a number of “financial facilitators” in neighboring countries such as Sudan, Turkey, Algeria and Qatar, according to a statement from the U.S. Treasury Department.

Japan quickly followed suit, hitting nine leaders as well as a company linked to Hamas.

Late last month, Wally Adeyemo, the U.S. deputy secretary to the U.S. Treasury, visited London, Brussels and Berlin to call for an expansion of sanctions against Hamas.

Asked if the EU would follow suit, five EU diplomats said they were unaware of any such proposal from the European Commission, which is normally in charge of proposing sanctions.

Pressed for details on the radio silence, diplomats offered differing explanations.

One said that sanctioning individual Hamas leaders required evidence implicating them in terrorist activity and that the EU lacked the intelligence capability to gather the proof on its own — meaning capitals would have to provide it, and so far it was not forthcoming.

Another diplomat pointed to the sensitivity of the Israel-Hamas war in some member countries, which would make it hard to find unanimous support for the sanctions. The same diplomat said the Commission and the EEAS, the bloc’s diplomatic arm, might want more time to test the waters before putting forward a formal proposal.

Other officials have pointed to the fact that the EU has already listed Hamas as a terrorist organization. The EU won a court case in 2021 allowing it to keep Hamas on the European list of terror groups.

A European Commission spokesperson said that as Hamas is already listed as a terror organization by the EU, “making resources (including finances) directly or indirectly available to Hamas is already prohibited.”

The spokesperson was not able to comment on any possible discussion in the Council “due to their confidential nature.”

Israel’s ambassador to the EU pushed back on this argument, telling POLITICO that the current restrictions weren’t being properly applied and that further sanctions were needed to penalize leaders and entities not covered at present.

“Hamas is already recognized by the EU as a terrorist organization but we need a more robust solution to implement that,” Haim Regev said. “We already start discussing this in Europe and with the EU as well looking to see what can be done more because at the end of the road, it’s [Hamas] not only a threat for Israel, it’s a threat for Europe.”

The push from Regev echoed pressure from the United States. A U.S. Treasury official said they hadn’t encountered resistance from the EU on sanctions, but said “I feel like we have to go faster.”

“Speed matters, and the faster that we act together, the faster that we can cut off their access to the funding that they need to conduct their violence, not just in Israel but around the world,” the official added.

Elisa Braun and Bjarke Smith-Meyer contributed reporting.