Accused Turkish Hamas Financier Tied to Official Who Denied Oct. 7 Atrocities

By Debbie Weiss

The algemeiner

A Turkish man accused by US prosecutors of funneling money and supplies to Hamas through a purported humanitarian organization worked closely with Ghazi Hamad, the senior Hamas official who on Monday used an interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan to deny that the terror group deliberately murdered and abducted civilians on Oct. 7.

Mohammad Yousef Hasna, 45, from Istanbul, was arrested Friday in Britain and ordered held while the US seeks his extradition to New York. He faces charges of conspiring to provide material support to Hamas, conspiring to finance terrorism and financing terrorism, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

Prosecutors said Hasna used a senior position in what they described as a sham international humanitarian organization to deliver food, supplies and funding to Hamas, working closely with the group’s senior leadership. The US government said he had worked with Hamad, a member of Hamas’s governing body and its current spokesman, since at least 2023.

Hamad appeared Monday on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” where he denied that Hamas had deliberately targeted civilians during the Oct. 7 attack, saying that “maybe there were some mistakes by individual” Hamas operatives and insisting that “it is not our thinking” to kill civilians. Morgan challenged him over the killing of civilians and seizure of hostages, accusing Hamas of crossing “every moral, ethical and humanity line.”

Asked when Hamas would disarm under the US-backed Gaza agreement, Hamad did not give a date. He said the group had accepted the deal because of “forced necessity” and the conditions in Gaza, but added that Hamas had not changed its “mentality” or its goal of ending what it calls the “occupation,” even though Israel withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005.

“This is our holy mission,” Hamad said, adding that Hamas might pursue it through “different tactics, different tools, different methods.”

Morgan also pressed Hamad over Hamas’s treatment of the hostages abducted on Oct. 7. Hamad claimed the group had been “very, very kind” to them, saying they were fed and provided with “all kinds of protection and shelter.”

The British broadcaster, who has come under fire for featuring controversial guests including former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters, who went on an anti-Israel tirade on Morgan’s show, then confronted Hamad with remarks he made weeks after the attack that appeared to contradict his denial that Hamas intended to kill civilians. In an Oct. 24, 2023 interview with Lebanon’s LBC television, Hamad said the Oct. 7 assault was “just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth,” and vowed that Hamas would continue until Israel was destroyed.

“It is not our thinking. It is not our mentality to kill civilians,” Hamad told Morgan.

Hamad had previously headed Hamas’s Ministry of Social Development, which prosecutors said Hasna coordinated with while arranging aid deliveries.

NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research group that examines foreign charities’ dealings with the ministry and UN agencies operating in Gaza, said the allegations against Hasna point to a larger pattern of Hamas exploiting international aid networks.

“The systematic diversion of millions in aid has been used to finance the terror infrastructure used in the October 7 atrocities. This arrest and extradition request reflects a growing recognition, at least in Washington, of the urgent need to disrupt Hamas’ financing structures,” NGO Monitor founder and president Gerald Steinberg said.

According to Steinberg, Hamad should never have been featured on Piers Morgan.

“As an architect of the October 7 atrocities and head of the MoSD, Hamad’s rightful place is in court, not as a celebrity guest,” Steinberg told The Algemeiner.

NGO Monitor said it had documented coordination between the ministry and several US-based nonprofits, including Mercy Corps, American Near East Refugee Aid, known as ANERA, and Rahma Worldwide, which together have received more than $100 million from the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, the federal foreign-aid agency whose operations were shut down by the Trump administration in 2025 and largely transferred to the State Department. The groups have worked with the ministry on projects involving cash assistance, construction and other aid programs.