Binance Halts Hamas-Linked Accounts Following Israeli Request
Mitchell Nixon
Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, has complied with Israeli law enforcement’s request to freeze accounts associated with Hamas militants.
Ordinary Palestinian civilian-owned Binance accounts remain unaffected by the freeze.
According to a WeChat post on October 10 by Yi He, the co-founder of the exchange, this freeze is specifically targeted at Hamas and not the Palestinian population. He explained:
“Hamas is a designated terrorist organisation by the United Nations. Therefore, any organisation, including banks and trading platforms, will need to cooperate on the receipt of freeze requests. This is not something Binance can decide on its own.“
He went on to clarify that no trading platforms have the option to reject such requests, stating, “Palestine has an organised 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.“
Earlier on October 10, the local news source Calcalist reported that Binance had assisted Israeli officials in freezing the cryptocurrency accounts of Hamas militants. Law enforcement authorities claim that these accounts were being used by terrorists to collect funds related to warfare via social media.
The day before, there were reports that the Israeli Web3 community had initiated a charity campaign named “Crypto Aid Israel” to assist Israeli civilians affected by the ongoing conflict. This initiative accepts Bitcoin and Ether donations, as well as various ERC-20 tokens like Tether. Since its launch, the campaign has received nearly $50,000 in cryptocurrency donations.
Yi He indicated that the ban would not impact regular users, including Palestinian civilians. She mentioned previous incidents, such as conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, where they didn’t freeze the accounts of ordinary Russian users.