The US Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against senior Hamas leaders for their roles in the Oct 7, 2023 attack in Israel, according to a criminal complaint, Anadolu reports.

“The Justice Department has charged Yahya Sinwar and other senior leaders of Hamas for financing, directing and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.

“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last,” he added.

The indictment, the first of its kind from the Justice Department, targets five high-ranking Hamas officials including Sinwar, who is reportedly hiding in tunnels in Gaza, and Ismail Haniyeh, the late head of Hamas’s political bureau who was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran on July 31, with charges ranging from terrorism to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction and conspiracy to murder US nationals outside the US.