In Tehran, Hamas deputy chief says on ‘same path’ as Iran in fighting Israel
Delegation from Gaza-based terror group meets head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations; Haniyeh says he hopes visit will produce ‘important results’
Adam Rasgon is a former Palestinian affairs reporter at The Times of Israel
Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri said in Tehran on Sunday that Hamas and Iran stand on “the same path” in fighting Israel, Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency reported.
Arouri made the comment during a meeting with Kamal Kharazi, the head of Iran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations, the Fars report stated.
“We are on the same path as the Islamic Republic — the path of battling the Zionist entity and the arrogant ones,” he said, according to the report.
Hamas is an Islamist terror group that has vowed to destroy Israel.
Arouri and several other high-ranking Hamas officials, including Moussa Abu Marzouk, Maher Salah, Husam Badran, Osama Hamdan, Ezzat al-Rishq and Ismail Radwan, arrived in Tehran on Saturday for a multi-day visit, the terror group’s website reported on Saturday.
رئيس المجلس السياسي للعلاقات الاستراتيجية في إيران كمال خرازي خلال استقباله نائب رئيس المكتب السياسي لحماس صالح العاروري: استمرار المقاومة هي الضمانة لتحقيق النصر على كيان الاحتلال الصهيوني pic.twitter.com/6lmFDw3naF
— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) July 21, 2019
The delegation of Hamas officials were slated to meet with senior Iranian officials, the report on Hamas’s website added.
Arouri, who was elected as Hamas’s deputy chief in October 2017, has traveled to Iran at least five times over the past two years.
He has frequently heaped praised on Iran, which is believed to be a major financial backer of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing.
“Iran is the only country that says that entity is carcinogenic and should be uprooted from the region,” he told the pro-Hamas Al-Quds TV in February 2018. “It is the only country that is prepared to provide real and public support to the Palestinian resistance and others to confront the entity.”
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh told a group of Turkish journalists via video-conference on Saturday that he hopes the Hamas delegation’s visit in Iran would achieve “important results.”