British-Palestinian activist sanctioned by the US over alleged Hamas ties
Zaher Birawi, chair of the Palestine Forum in Britain, is also a senior official of the Popular Conference for Palestinian Abroad, described by the US government as a Hamas front
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed sanctions on Zaher Birawi, a UK-based alleged Hamas operative, who supported the flotilla campaign to Gaza that was joined by Greta Thunberg.
According to OFAC’s press release on Tuesday, Birawi, who describes himself on his X account as a journalist and broadcaster, is a senior official of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA), a Turkey and Lebanon-based organisation that it described as “purport[ing] to broadly represent Palestinians but is clandestinely controlled by Hamas and has been a key backer of several so-called flotillas attempting to access Gaza.”
OFAC stated that Birawi is a member of PCPA’s general secretariat, and one of its founding members, saying that “PCPA does not only work with, and in support of, Hamas—it operates at Hamas’s behest. The strategic and tactical aspects of the PCPA’s activity are controlled by Hamas through the placement of key Hamas-linked figures in major positions throughout the organisation.”
PCPA was further described by OFAC as a main organiser of recent flotillas to Gaza and “a front organisation for Hamas”, established and managed by operatives from Hamas’s Bureau of International Relations, which at the time was led by Mussa Abu Marzouq.
OFAC listed findings such as a 19 April 2018 letter, signed by the slain Ismail Haniyeh, then the chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, that outlined his guidance for how Hamas should take control over the Palestinian political process: One element was to escalate violence against Israel, and the second was to boost Hamas’s international outreach, naming PCPA as a core part of this strategy. Additionally, prior the letter, Hamas also helped fund the inaugural meeting of the PCPA, which was established in 2017, and provided $100,000 for this conference.
“Hamas continues to show a callous disregard for the welfare of the Palestinian people”, said Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence John K. Hurley. “The Trump Administration will not look the other way while Hamas leadership and enablers exploit the financial system to fund terrorist operations.”
On 7 October 2024, OFAC sanctioned another British individual, Majed al-Zeer, who served, according to the current press release, as the Chairman and President of the PCPA, whom it said “plays a central role” in Hamas’s fundraising efforts in Europe and was the senior Hamas representative in Germany.
Last December, the Telegraph reported that the UK Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) was allegedly assessing whether to designate Birawi under the Counter-Terrorism (Sanctions) Regulations 2019 due to his ties to Hamas. The newspaper claimed that Birawi has been labelled as ‘serious security risk’.
Birawi was designated by Israel as a member of Hamas in 2013. In September 2025, Israel revealed official Hamas documents that were found in Gaza, that allegedly proved Hamas’s direct involvement in the funding and execution of the “Sumud” flotilla to Gaza, via PCPA and Birawi. One of the published official Hamas documents included a list of PCPA operatives, including Birawi, who was listed as “Founder and Head of the European Palestinian Media Forum in London”.
In 2023, following the 7 October attacks, Labour MP Christian Wakeford used parliamentary privilege to name Birawi as one of four “senior Hamas operatives” active in the UK. “This house rightly voted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety in November 2021,” he said. “It is therefore a serious national security risk for Hamas operatives to be living here in London.”
As described by the Times in December, Birawi is also the chairman of the Palestine Forum in Britain (PFB), one of six organisations that make up the Palestine Coalition, which has led some of the biggest pro Palestine demonstrations in the UK over the past few years.
Beside PCPA, OFAC also sanctioned six Gaza-based organisations that claim to provide medical care to Palestinian civilians but which it said in fact support the military wing of Hamas: Waed Society Gaza (Waed Society), Al-Nur Society Gaza (Al-Nur), Qawafil Society Gaza (Qawafil), Al-Falah Society Gaza (Al-Falah), Merciful Hands Gaza (Merciful Hands), and Al-Salameh Society Gaza (Al-Salameh). According to OFAC, these organisations are organised by, and integrated into, Hamas’s military wing, and members of Hamas’s internal security forces are formally assigned to work in these so-called charities, specifically the Waed Society and Al-Salameh.
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