Dem Sen. John Fetterman to Newsmax: Charitable Funding of Hamas Must Be Stopped

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told Newsmax on Monday that he learned during his recent trip to Israel that most of the funding Iranian-backed Hamas has received was through charitable donations, and not cryptocurrency.

Unlike many of his Democrat colleagues, Fetterman has been an outspoken supporter of Israel since Hamas' Oct. 7 terrorist attack resulted in the massacre of at least 1,200 Israeli civilians, with about another 250 taken hostage.

Fetterman told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" he was shocked to find out that Hamas was receiving so much money from charitable donations. He added he will share the information with his colleagues on the Senate Banking Committee and said more must be done to prevent such funds ending up in the hands of a terrorist group.

"I thought this was actually crypto, and I said, really, I'm sure a lot of this was financed through crypto," Fetterman said. "And they said, actually no, that was not the primary one. In fact, it was really a minor part of all of that. They said their primary concern was actually coming through charitable kinds of donations, as well. And they had that conversation that all these charitable [organizations are] a pipeline directly to supporting Hamas.

Fetterman said he is concerned about keeping Hamas or any other terror group away from any money that might be flowing to the region when it comes time to rebuild the Gaza Strip following the end of Israel's military operation.

"I can't support any kinds of resources [that] go into that so long as Hamas is allowed to survive," he said. "How can we possibly rebuild Gaza having any kind of an accountability for those resources because that could be a bonanza for Hamas or any other organization to skim monies off that, to replenish their treasury or to rebuild their tunnels or buy more arms, as well.

"That's a major issue that's going to be coming up and having those conversations with the experts there in Israel [has me] convinced that there's something we need to be concerned about. And that's one of the reasons why I came [to Israel], and I'm going to bring that back to my colleagues on the Banking Committee. It's a significant issue that we're all going to have to revisit."

Fetterman said he visited with embattled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and that Netanyahu was firm in stating that Hamas is the Jewish state's ultimate enemy, as well as Iran.

"His goal is to destroy Hamas, and I support that, as well," Fetterman said. "And there's something else that we have to address, too: destroying the tunnel system. And a lot of the terrible things said about how Rafah is going to be a major disaster and all these things are going to happen, and that actually wasn't true.

"Now they've been able to demolish a lot of the tunnel parts, and to isolate Hamas in that region. They understand that Hamas cannot be allowed to be functional. And that's also not about destroying every last member of Hamas. That's not what this means. It just means it's not having the ability to harm or have another kind of attack like Oct. 7. And I fully support that. There will be no rebuilding Israel. There will be no peace. There will be no any kind of security so long as Hamas is able to be functional in any meaningful way."

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