ROME — Italian prosecutors have ordered the detention of nine people in an investigation into alleged fundraising for Hamas through charities based in Italy, in an operation led by anti-mafia and anti-terrorism units.
A statement from prosecutors in Genoa said the suspects were accused of “belonging to and having financed” Hamas, which the European Union designates as a terrorist organisation. Prosecutors alleged that around €7 million raised over the past two years for humanitarian purposes was diverted to entities linked to Hamas. Police said assets worth more than €8 million were seized.
Italian media reported that judges issued custody orders for nine suspects, but that seven were located and detained in Italy, while two were abroad — one said to be in Turkey and one in Gaza. The operation involved Genoa’s anti-mafia and anti-terrorism directorate, the police counter-terrorism unit (Digos), and the Guardia di Finanza, including its specialist units dealing with financial crime.
Among those named in reporting is Mohammad Hannoun, identified as the president of the Palestinian Association in Italy. Prosecutors described him as a member of Hamas’s “external” apparatus and as the head of an alleged Italian cell.
Investigators said the suspected financing was channelled through three charities operating in Italy, with transfers allegedly routed through foreign-based organisations and banking channels in what prosecutors described as “triangulation” intended to avoid detection. Italian reporting identified the three organisations as an association founded in Genoa in 1994, a volunteer organisation established in 2003, and “La Cupola d’Oro”, opened in Milan in the same year, with prosecutors alleging they were administered by Hannoun.
Prosecutors said the money was transferred to associations in Gaza, the Palestinian territories, or Israel that were “owned, controlled or linked” to Hamas. In Italian reporting, investigators alleged that some recipient groups in Gaza had been declared illegal by Israel on the grounds of alleged links to Hamas, and that at least some funds were directed to Hamas figures, including Osama Alisawi, described as a former minister in the Hamas administration in Gaza.
The investigation began after suspicious financial transactions were flagged, prosecutors said, and then expanded through cooperation with Dutch authorities and other European countries, with coordination via Eurojust, the EU agency that supports judicial cooperation in cross-border cases. Italian prosecutors and police have increasingly relied on such mechanisms in complex financial investigations, where bank transfers, informal networks and foreign intermediaries can obscure the origin and destination of funds.
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni publicly thanked the authorities for what she described as a complex operation that had uncovered alleged financing for Hamas through “so-called charity organisations”. Italy’s interior minister, Matteo Piantedosi, said the inquiry had exposed activities presented as humanitarian initiatives while allegedly concealing support for terrorism.
The arrests come against a politically charged backdrop in Italy. Meloni’s government has aligned itself closely with Israel since the start of the Gaza war, a position that has prompted repeated street protests, including demonstrations in Rome and other major cities.
At EU level, Hamas is listed under the bloc’s counter-terrorism measures and is also covered by a dedicated sanctions framework introduced in January 2024 targeting those who support, facilitate or enable violent actions by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
