TEL AVIV – In a development that could have dramatic ramifications for the region, Iran has decided to renew its full financial sponsorship of the Hamas terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, a senior Hamas official told WND.
The Hamas figure, speaking from Gaza under condition of anonymity, divulged a meeting he said took place in Lebanon last Wednesday between representatives of Iran’s embassy in Lebanon, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and members from Hamas and the Iran-sponsored Hezbollah.
The Hamas official said the meeting represented the official reconciliation between Iran and Hamas. The Iranians distanced themselves from Hamas after the terrorist organization in recent years refused to aid in fighting the insurgency targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
At the meeting, Iran pledged to renew its full financial sponsorship of the cash-strapped Hamas and will in the coming weeks transfer money to pay the salaries of the tens of thousands of employees on the payroll of Gaza’s Islamist rulers, the official said.
Iran also pledged to rearm Hamas, not only in the Gaza Strip but in the West Bank, said the Hamas official.
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The delegation discussed the difficulties in getting weapons to Gaza, particularly after the Egyptian military’s deployment to the neighboring Sinai to fight jihadist organizations. The Egyptian military has also successfully stemmed much of the flow of weapons from the Sinai into Gaza.
Surprisingly, the representatives at the meeting did not exclude the possibility of attempting to rearm Hamas in Gaza via potential smuggling routes from Israel’s northern border with Syria and Lebanon. The representatives noted Hezbollah has demonstrated expertise at smuggling drugs from Lebanon into northern Israel, where the drugs make their way across the Jewish state.
Marking another possible dramatic regional development, the representatives further discussed opening smuggling channels from Jordan into the West Bank to bolster Hamas’s military capabilities in that territory.
Last month, after Israel took out a Hezbollah convoy transporting an Iranian Guards member, the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s second-in-command, Brig. Gen. Hossein Salami, vowed to “open new fronts against Israel and change the balance of power.”
Salami claimed Iran could open a new battlefront against Israel from the West Bank.