On October 15 the Government of Canada officially listed an organization known as Samidoun as a terrorist organization.

Here is part of the statement released by Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc on October 15 :
“Violent extremism, acts of terrorism or terrorist financing have no place in Canadian society or abroad.”
“The listing of Samidoun as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code sends a strong message that Canada will not tolerate this type of activity, and will do everything in its power to counter the ongoing threat to Canada’s national security and all people in Canada.”
Leblance also noted that the listing was made alongside the U.S. Treasury Department’s own decision to list the group as a specially designated global terrorist entity.

Samidoun is an organization founded by someone by the name of Charlotte Kates.
According to the National Post, Kates has a long history of supporting violent terrorist organizations.
Born in New Jersey, Kates, now 44, attended Rutgers University. Kates, who is Caucasian, describes herself as “not religious.”
According to the National Post. Kates began Samidoun in 2011.
This past spring, according to the Post, “she made headlines after Vancouver police arrested her for praising the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas against southern Israel as ‘heroic and brave.’ At the same rally on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, she led the crowd in a chant of ‘Long live October 7.’ She has yet to be charged, but national Jewish advocacy groups say she ought to be for hate speech.”

Here is what the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs posted on October 15: “Samidoun (Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network) is a registered Canadian not-for-profit with direct affiliation and clear ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) – an organization that has been placed on the list of terrorist entities under Canada’s Criminal Code since 2003.  
“There is ample open-source information that ties Samidoun to the PFLP. In 2021, Israel designated Samidoun a terror group based on the organization’s direct affiliation with and ties to the PFLP. In 2023, Germany outlawed Samidoun due to their activities that promoted terrorism. Samidoun’s leadership was deported from Germany in 2019 and denied entry to the EU in 2022, both times being returned to Canada. 
“Most disturbing to Canada’s Jewish community, Samidoun has a significant and active presence in Canada where it holds events, raises funds, runs advocacy campaigns, and organizes activities on university campuses. Regularly, Samidoun officials call for violence and glorify terrorist organizations at these events.”   
Now, by being listed as a terrorist organization by the Government of Canada, it becomes a crime to provide Samidoun with “material support.”

Hamas pleaded with Iran to join its Oct. 7, 2023 attack months in advance, the New York Times reported on Saturday, citing documents seized by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza back in January.

According to the report, the deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya, informed senior Iranian commander Mohammed Said Izadi of the plot in July 2023, in Lebanon.

Although the Iranians denied any involvement in the Oct. 7 attack, Hamas leadership meetings, obtained in transcribed form and verified by the Times, reveal that al-Hayya asked Izadi to strike sensitive sites in Israel in “the first hour” of the attack.

The documents further reveal that Hamas also intended to convene with Hezbollah’s late leader Hassan Nasrallah, but that the meeting was postponed. It was not clear whether a later meeting was held in person.

According to the recordings, Izadi said that Iran and Hezbollah sanctioned the attack in principle, but that more time was needed “to prepare the environment.”

Hamas was encouraged that its allies would not leave it “exposed,” but concluded that it might launch the attack on its own, the Times reported.

Three factors propelled Hamas’s decision to act alone, based on the recordings:

• Concern over Israel’s development of a new laser defense system.

• Israel’s election of a right-wing government with growing Israeli presence on the Temple Mount, which “can’t make us be patient.”

• The expanding divisions within Israeli society over issues such as the government’s judicial reform push.

• The desire to quash normalization talks between Jerusalem and Riyadh.

The documents moreover showed that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar held secret meetings with a small syndicate of the terror group’s political and military seniors for a period of more than two years. They named the plot “the big project” and deliberately schemed to deceive Israel, conveying the impression that Gaza was focused on “life and economic growth.” The Hamas leaders further stated that they “must keep the enemy convinced that Hamas in Gaza wants calm.”

The Hamas leadership expressed its relief that several instances of rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions had not developed into confrontations.

Sinwar conveyed his hope that the attack, alongside a broader regional war, would bring about Israel’s “collapse.”

The Times also reported that Hamas initially planned to execute the attack in the fall of 2022, but was delayed, perhaps due to efforts to persuade Iran and Hezbollah to join in.

According to the Times, the recordings were discovered on a computer found by Israeli troops in an underground Hamas command center in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza.

On Oct. 7, thousands of Hamas terrorists, as well as Gazan civilians, invaded Israeli communities in the western Negev, massacring 1,200 individuals, wounding thousands and kidnapping 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. The attack instigated a war that has expanded into multiple fronts, with Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis, Iraqi paramilitary groups and Iran directly attacking the Jewish state.

Hezbollah is running out of money, as three of its main sources of cash dry up, the Voice of America (VOA) reported on Friday.

The Iranian terrorist proxy relies on three key funding channels: Al-Qard al Hasan, or AQAH, a Hezbollah-owned quasi-bank operating without a government banking license; Licensed Lebanese commercial banks: and cash from Iran, Researchers told the broadcaster.

Israel targeted AQAH in its initial airstrikes during the current campaign in Lebanon. They hit Hezbollah’s “cash storage centers, including a large part of the AQAH vaults,” leaving the group in a “financial crisis,” VOA reported, quoting a Sept. 30 report by Murr Television, aka MTV Lebanon.

Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, also told the VOA that Israel “destroyed” most of AQAH’s branches.

“Hezbollah is facing a very serious financial problem. They are unable to pay rank and file members who have fled their homes and need to feed their families,” Khashan said.

The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), a group of Israeli intelligence veterans, describes Al-Qard al-Hasan (“The Benevolent Loan”), as an institution that mainly provides interest-free loans to the Shi’ite community in Lebanon.

The main idea is to support Shi’ite society so that it in turn will support Hezbollah, becoming a “resistance society,” ITIC explained.

The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned AQAH in 2007 and individuals associated with it in proceeding years. The sanctions did not, however, affect the number of loans provided by the organization, which continued to grow, ITIC said.

David Asher, a former U.S. Defense and State Department official who focused on Hezbollah’s drug trafficking and money laundering operations, told VOA that the group is in “deep trouble” as it is also losing access to Lebanese banking.

“I’m hearing from Lebanese bankers, including Hezbollah financiers, that Lebanon’s wealthiest bankers who can afford to fly have fled to Europe and the Gulf, fearing they could be targeted next by Israel for helping Hezbollah,” Asher said, now a senior fellow at the Washington-based Hudson Institute.

“These Lebanese bankers, most of them billionaires, see the wind is blowing against Hezbollah, so they are not going to let it take millions of dollars out of their banks, which still have cash despite being bankrupt on paper,” Asher said. “They know that if they do, Israel probably will eliminate them, too.”

Another Hezbollah funding source is cash delivered by plane from Iran. It, too, is drying up.

On Sept. 27, Israel warned it would not allow hostile flights carrying weapons to land at Beirut’s airport. The next day, an Iranian flight from Tehran made a U-turn over Iraqi airspace.

Lebanon’s Transport Ministry said it had ordered the Iranian plane to turn around after an Israeli threat that it would use force against Beirut’s air traffic control tower if the plane attempted to land.

“I’ve heard from my Israeli counterparts that the Iranians are scared to send money to Lebanon right now because Israel is threatening to target flights into Beirut. The Israelis are warning they will target flights full of money, not just weapons,” Asher said.