Iran Cut Off Financial Aid To Palestinian Militant Group Hamas
HeffX-LTN learned early Tuesday that Iran has completely cut off its financial aid to the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Since a rapprochement between the 2 last year after a rift emerged 3 years earlier over the Palestinian group’s refusal to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Tehran has been a financial backer of Hamas, who have controlled the Gaza Strip since elections in Y 2006, and their military operations.
Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard has transferred millions of dollars to the Palestinian group’s military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam brigades, within the last year to finance Gaza’s tunnel network and replenish rocket caches used against Israel during last Summer’s conflict. However, Hamas’s politburo chief Moussa Abu Marzouk, who is believed to currently reside in exile in Egypt, now says that Iran’s financial backing has dried up.”
“The relations between Hamas and Iran are not advancing in a direction in which the organisation (Hamas) is interested and aren’t improving to the degree the organization wants in order to help the Palestinian issue,” he said.
The termination of funds to Hamas contradicts recent comments by Iran’s political elite following the landmark nuclear deal, agreed earlier this month with 5P+1 UN world powers in Vienna.
Last week, Iran FM Abbas Araqchi confirmed that the Shiite country would continue to arm its allies in the Middle East, which include Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah.
“We have told them the P5+1 world powers in the negotiations that we will supply arms to anyone and anywhere necessary and will import weapons from anywhere we want and we have clarified this during the negotiations,” he told Iranian state TV.
While Mr. Marzouk said that Hamas was still attempting to better ties with Iran, the decreased funding from Iran comes during warming relations between Hamas, a Sunni Muslim group, and the Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia.
Last week, the Hamas leadership outside of the Gaza Strip, living in exile in countries such as Qatar and Turkey, visited Saudi Arabia for the 1st time in 3 years to discuss relations.
The group’s top political leaders held a meeting with Saudi King Salman in Mecca, in an attempt by the royal leader to pull the Sunni militant group away from Tehran’s sphere of influence. Mr. Marzouk was one of the members of the Hamas delegation which traveled to Riyadh.
The cut in Iranian funding for Hamas was likely caused by the Palestinian group’s recent rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, and “less linked” with the Iranian nuclear deal.
It is a new policy of King Salman; getting close to elements in the region in order to block Iran’s influence. It is a game between the 2 powers the region for influence.
Stay tuned…
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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