by Giovanni Giacalone
On Saturday, August 16, the controversial Italy-based Palestinian preacher Mohammad Hannoun attacked the US Treasury Department during a street demonstration in Milan organized by the Association of Palestinians in Italy, of which he is president.
Hannoun and two of his associations (ABSPP and Golden Dome) were blacklisted by the US DOT twice, in October 2024 and June 2025 as the individual was indicated as a Hamas member and money collector for the terrorist organization in Italy.
Furthermore, on Saturday, Hannoun denied being a member of Hamas while in the meantime claiming support for the terrorist group. Moreover, he also named the DOT accusation “a lie and a hoax”.
The Palestinian activist stated: “I don’t belong to Hamas, I say this officially, but I am part of the Palestinian people. I respect every Palestinian faction that respects the rights of the Palestinian people, that fights to secure these rights for self-determination. Hamas is part of the Palestinian people. Hamas as a movement received more than 70% of the Palestinian vote in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, so Hamas is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.”
And again:
“I am a supporter of Hamas, just as I am a supporter of every faction that fights for my rights…So this nonsense, this accusation of being part of Hamas, of being a Hamas leader, is a lie, a hoax. I am not part of Hamas, I am not a Hamas leader, I am a Palestinian, I am committed, I have been committed for decades to the struggle for the rights of the Palestinian people”. (LaPresse).
Hannoun seems to forget that Hamas, once it took power in 2007, never held elections again and persecuted any kind of opposition.
In October 2024, the US DOT indicated Hannoun as “an Italy-based Hamas member who established the Charity Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, or Associazione Benefica di Solidarietà con il Popolo Palestinese (ABSPP), 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”.
In June 2025, Washington sanctioned another association linked to Hannoun, the “Golden Dome (Cupola d’Oro), as reported in the official statement: “Mohammad Hannoun, who publicly promoted the charity and used it to continue evading sanctions and raising revenue for the Hamas military wing through donors, many of whom were unwitting of the links to Hamas. On October 7, 2024, Treasury designated Hannoun for having materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services in support of, Hamas. La Cupola d’Oro, like Charity Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, also designated by OFAC on October 7, 2024, is a sham charity established to support Hamas.”
However, Hannoun’s issues with funding did not begin in 2024. In December of 2021, following several reports to the Anti-Money Laundering Office, Unicredit Bank suspended operations on the accounts of the ABSPP, which also has offices in Milan and Rome, due to a series of anomalies. From failure to register in the Revenue Agency register to the massive movement of cash, in some cases to subjects registered on the blacklists of European databases. Despite all this, according to the Italian media, the indictment that the judicial office launched did not lead anywhere due to the lack of verifiable elements in the Palestinian territories.
In July 0f 2023, the Israeli Ministry of Defense asked the Italian police to seize Hannoun’s money. From the investigation conducted by the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, it emerged that 500 thousand euros were available to the individual who, in the past, was accused by Israel, without any criminal repercussions, of hiding financial support to Palestinian suicide bombers. These funds, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, are “the property of, or in any case a reward for, a terrorist organization.” Therefore, “they must be seized”. As explained by the Italian news site “Il Sussidiario”, over the years, and on several occasions, the Italian intelligence services received reports of strange movements of Mohammad Hannoun’s associations, in particular of money.
In March of 2024, as reported by the Italian news site Inkiesta, Hannoun tried to bypass the closure of his accounts first by asking donors to bring cash money directly to his offices in Rome, Milan, and Genoa.
As explained in November 2024, during an interview with the Italian site “Panorama”, by the investigative journalist Massimiliano Coccia, who has been following Hannoun’s movements for many years, the Shin Bet asked the Italian government to intervene against Hannoun, but Rome has never acted. Coccia also added that the Italian authorities’ interest would arise only after his articles on Hannoun were published, noting that this would not be a norm and practice in a normal country (but rather the other way around).
It is also important to recall that in October 2024, the European Leadership Network (Elnet) published a report on Hamas in Europe, dedicating the Italian part to Hannoun and associates (including Suleiman Hijazi, Raed Dawoud and Raed al Salahat), and exposing the links between Hannoun and individuals active in other European countries and indicated as linked to Hamas; among these, some of those who were sanctioned by the United States.
Hannoun’s support for Hamas has been widely documented; on October 11th, 2023, just three days after the October 7th massacre, while being interviewed by the Italian national TV station Rai3, Hannoun claimed that “Hamas’ attack is self-defense”; without any hesitation or concern that such a statement would go public.
A few days later, on October 13th, Hannoun took advantage of his role as imam at the Islamic Center of Genoa to attack those countries supporting Israel, including Italy:
“We have seen the attitude of our Italian, European, American governments and some Arab countries who have sided in favor of Israel, who begin to cry for the victims, who even told the lie to encourage, to compare Hamas as equal to ISIS… All this, to attack the “Palestinian resistance”. The video disappeared from the web shortly after.
On January 4th, Hannoun used his personal Facebook account to glorify Yahya Ayyash, Hamas’ notorious bombmaker (sadly known for both developing Hamas’s use of suicide bombings and building many of the explosives used in attacks), and Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas leader in Lebanon who died in a drone strike on January 2nd, 2024.
On November 9, 2024, during a speech in Milan, Hannoun, praised the perpetrators of the “Jew-hunt” that took place in Amsterdam on November 7th, when Islamist thugs attacked the Maccabi Tel Aviv fans after the game against Ajax. The Italian authorities responded with a lenient sanction banning the preacher from entering Milan for six months.
In August 2022, an investigative report published by OFCS Report, an Italian observatory with expertise in national and international security, revealed a network of political connections involving Hannoun, both within Italy and abroad. The report highlighted his ties predominantly with Italian left-wing political leaders and included photographs of Hannoun alongside senior Hamas figures Ismail Haniyeh and Khaled Meshaal.
The issue regarding Hannoun’s political connections with the Italian left and far-left was recently taken up by the Italian daily newspaper Il Tempo, which dedicated numerous articles to exploring the connections and ties between Hannoun, his close associates, and the political landscape, particularly the Five-Star Movement, but not exclusively.
On Saturday afternoon, Italian MP Sara Kelany, from the ruling party “Fratelli d’Italia”, issued a statement sharply criticizing Hannoun’s remarks as well as his left-wing supporters.
“Hannoun’s statements claiming to be a Hamas sympathizer are shocking. These are extremely serious statements, fully confirming what we firmly denounced in our inquiries: Hannoun openly claims to be a supporter and sympathizer of Hamas, that the US is lying, and that Hamas is the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Ascari has traveled with Hannoun several times, the Five Star Movement has hosted him in the Chamber of Deputies, and he has shared more than one meeting with Democratic Party members. We have yet to hear Conte and all those who have given credence and support to such a character openly dissociate themselves from and condemn them. At this point, we must assume that Conte agrees with all these statements, which, we reiterate, wink at terrorism and fundamentalism, endangering institutions and national security.”
At this stage, it is pertinent to question how long Hannoun’s activities on Italian soil will continue to be tolerated, despite Washington’s sanctions. It is also worth noting that the Cupola d’Oro bank account at Poste Italiane, despite being sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury, still resulted active during a recent check.