In a high-profile operation, Italian law enforcement authorities have arrested a top Hamas leader and six Hamas-linked operatives for using three charities to funnel millions of euros to the terrorist outfit for violent anti-Israel offensives.
The cash was sometimes dispatched on trucks carrying humanitarian aid.
On December 27, the National Anti-Mafia and Counterterrorism Directorate, along with Italy’s State Police and Financial Police, arrested Mohammad Hannoun and his associates. Police also issued arrests for two other Hamas-linked operatives outside Italy.
Police said that the nine suspects had diverted seven million euros to associations “in Gaza, the Palestinian territories, or Israel, owned, controlled, or linked to Hamas.” Over 71 percent of funds raised under the guise of aid were sent directly to Hamas or its affiliates.
The cash was also used “to provide support for the families of persons involved in terrorist attacks or those detained for terrorist crimes, thus strengthening the intent of an undetermined number of Hamas members to adhere to the group’s terrorist strategy and criminal agenda, including by carrying out suicide attacks,” a police statement noted.
In a 306-page order, the Genoa Prosecutor’s Office named the charities used to launder the money as La Associazione Benefica di Solidarietà col Popolo Palestinese or Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (ABSPP), La Cupola d’Oro (known in English as the “Golden Dome Charity Organization”), and La Palma.
Hamas’ Key Fund-Raiser in Italy Arrested
Described by Italian foreign policy advisor Bepi Pezzuli as “Hamas’s best friend in Rome,”
Hannoun, an architect from Ramallah who holds Jordanian citizenship, is a senior member of Hamas’s foreign branch and leader of its Italian cell.
Three days after the October 7 massacre, Hannoun defended Hamas’ attack as self-defense on Italian state television. He later glorified Yahya Ayyash, Hamas’s master bombmaker, who was killed by Israel in 1996, and praised the Amsterdam pogrom against Maccabi Tel Aviv supporters.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Hannoun in October 2024, warning that ABSPP was a “sham charity in Italy which ostensibly raises funds for humanitarian purposes, but in reality helps bankroll Hamas’s military wing.”
“As an executive at ABSPP, Hannoun has sent money to Hamas-controlled organizations since at least 2018. He has solicited funding for Hamas with senior Hamas officials and sent at least $4 million to Hamas over a 10-year period,” the US Office of Foreign Assets Control noted.
Police Seize Assets Worth Millions from Hamas Activists
The General Investigations and Special Operations Division (DIGOS) of the State Police, which raided 17 locations, including the NGOs’ offices and residences in Turin, Bologna, Bergamo, Florence, Monza Brianza, Lodi, and Modena, seized assets of over 8 million as well as cash of 1.08 million euros in the offices of the ABSPP and the homes of the suspects.
Around €560,000 was hidden in a storage room in a garage in Sassuolo, a municipality in the province of Modena. Police also seized computers hidden in a cavity in a wall in a home in the province of Lodi, as well as USBs and other electronic devices.
Documents seized mention Nibras, the daughter of Mahmoud Asfa, the head of the mosque on Via Padova in Milan. Her husband, Sulaiman Hijazi, is Hannoun’s longtime deputy. In a conversation, Hijazi confirms that “almost everything” raised by ABSPP goes to Hamas.
A police reconstruction of the cash route revealed part of it was sent to the Al Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ military wing in Gaza), and in at least one case, to Hezbollah. The cash was sometimes dispatched on trucks carrying humanitarian aid.
The Financial Police calculated that between 2007 and 2017 alone, the ABSPP’s Rome office in Centocelle had an income of €7.5 million and expenditures of €7.3 million, half of which went to Hamas and the rest to affiliates in Turkey, Gaza, and the West Bank.
Terrorism Expert Confirms Hannoun’s Islamist Links
Giovanni Giacalone, Italian expert in terrorism and counter-terrorism states that Italian law enforcement officials distributed the above photo showing Riyadh al-Bustanji, the imam for the Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People holding a rocket-propelled grenade alongside masked individuals wearing Hamas uniforms.
“The investigation has revealed direct contacts between Hannoun and senior Hamas figures, substantiated by photographic evidence and electronic surveillance,” Giovanni Giacalone, Italian expert in terrorism and counter-terrorism at the David Institute for Security Policy, told Focus on Western Islamism (FWI).
Citing images provided by Italian law enforcement, Giacalone, a senior advisor for the “Monitoring Jihadism Italy Project,” added:
Riyadh al-Bustanji, the association’s imam, was photographed holding a rocket-propelled grenade alongside masked individuals wearing Hamas uniforms. Another individual among those arrested was also depicted inside a tunnel. The inquiry further highlighted Turkey’s significant role as a logistical hub and fundraising center.
The researcher, who has been tracking Hannoun’s activities for years, described the Hamas operative’s Islamist links to FWI.
Al-Bustanji’s Islamist extremist views are well documented. During a 2012 broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV, he stated that he had taken his daughter to Gaza so she could learn how to raise children in accordance with the principles of jihad, the pursuit of martyrdom, and devotion to the Palestinian cause.
Hannoun, who appeared alongside Al-Bustanji on the same television network, similarly drew attention for his activities. In his capacity as imam at Genoa’s Islamic Center, he reportedly delivered radical sermons criticizing the Italian government for its alleged support of Israel. Electronic surveillance also recorded Hannoun listening to a nasheed that praised suicide attacks carried out by the al-Qassam Brigades.
Rome Church and Bishops Support Hannoun’s Flotilla
The Genoa prosecutor’s order confirmed that Hannoun and his brother, Said, “rejoiced over an explosion in the cafeteria of the University of Jerusalem, which killed nine civilians” on August 1, 2002. Days later, on August 19, “the joy [for Hannoun and another brother, Ahmad] was uncontainable: this time, ‘23 civilians,’ including ‘several children,’ were killed.”
Hamas-linked activists even used the historic church of San Lorenzo in Lucina in the heart of Rome to launch “The Peace Convoy for Gaza” in 2024, to raise funds, inviting Modestino Preziosi, an Italian marathon runner, to solicit donations from participants.
Hannoun was also one of the leading supporters of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was supported by Archbishop Mario Delfini of Milan and Archbishop Marco Tasca of Genoa, FWI reported.
Hannoun’s lawyers have argued that the charges against him are “largely based on evidence and assessments, including legal ones, from Israeli sources,” and cannot be used to prosecute him.
