The Justice Department is cracking down on Palestinian militant group Hamas with a new task force aimed at providing justice to the victims of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the group, known as Joint Task Force October 7, would focus on identifying, charging and prosecuting those who conducted the 2023 attacks, which took the lives of roughly 1,200 people — including 47 U.S. citizens. Hamas also took more than 250 people hostage, including eight U.S. citizens.
Specifically, the task force will investigate acts of terrorism and civil rights violations by those who have provided support to and financially backed Hamas, other related Iranian proxies, and antisemitism from these groups.
“The barbaric Hamas terrorists will not win — and there will be consequences,” Bondi said in a Monday statement.
WHO IS MAHMOUD KHALIL, THE ANTI-ISRAEL COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ACTIVIST ICE ARRESTED?
A senior counterterrorism prosecutor from the Justice Department’s National Security Division will lead the task force, along with a senior FBI special agent serving as the task force commander, and an FBI intelligence analyst as deputy task force commander, according to the Department of Justice.
FBI agents, analysts, forensic accountants, data scientists and linguists will all serve on the task force and will work on investigating and prosecuting domestic and extraterritorial terrorism cases. Likewise, the FBI will start to embed agents within Israel’s National Bureau of Counter Terror Financing and will coordinate with foreign counterparts with the FBI’s Legal Attaché office in Israel under the task force.
The task force’s efforts will expand upon the Justice Department’s ongoing investigations into those involved in the Oct. 7 attack and advance the agency’s efforts to hold “Hamas supporters accountable,” the Justice Department said in a news release.
The Justice Department’s announcement of the new task force coincides with the arrest of anti-Israel activist Mahmoud Khalil, who played a major role in the protests against Israel at Columbia University. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents took Khalil, a Palestinian raised in Syria and a permanent U.S. resident, into custody on March 9.
The Department of Homeland Security said that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the administration would revoke the green cards of any Hamas supporters in the U.S. and deport them.
White House officials told Fox News Digital following Khalil’s arrest that the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security and State Department are investigating Khalil as a possible national security threat. The investigation has detected “antisemitic and hateful” posts on Khalil’s social media, and determined he organized multiple antisemitic protests on Columbia’s campus, the officials said.
Meanwhile, Khalil’s attorneys have challenged the Trump administration’s actions and filed motions asserting that ICE violated Khalil’s constitutional rights.
