On 30 November, the US House of Representatives in a 307-119 passed a bill that would force the White House to permanently freeze $6 billion in Iranian funds released back in September as part of a successful prisoner exchange deal.
"Giving Iran access to these funds for any purpose frees up money for its malign activities, including its support to proxies, like we saw on 7 October, like Hamas," Representative Michael McCaul - who introduced the bill - told reporters.
The US Senate has introduced similar legislation to freeze the Iranian funds but has yet to pass it out of committee.
Despite the accusations from western officials, Iranian authorities maintain they had no previous knowledge of the plans by Hamas to launch Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and have repeatedly stressed Tehran has no interest in seeing the hostilities expand into a regional war.
In September, Tehran and Washington completed a landmark prisoner exchange deal brokered by Qatar that also saw the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian funds seized by South Korea due to US sanctions.
The billions were transferred by Seoul to the Qatari accounts of several Iranian banks using the SWIFT system, thanks to a sanctions waiver provided by Washington.
Despite US officials claiming in the wake of the deal that they would police the use of the funds, Iranian authorities stressed these would be used to acquire "Whatever the Iranian people need."
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/us-lawmakers-vote-to-permanently-freeze-6bn-in-iranian-funds
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