Liberman: Hamas is Approaching Iran Again

Avigdor Liberman, Israel's Defense Minister, stated, "With the help of Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah's cooperation with the Palestinian movement Hamas has expanded," and bringing Hamas back under the "umbrella of the Islamic Republic of Iran" has become a priority for both Hamas and Hezbollah. According to a statement from the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Avigdor Liberman made these remarks during a meeting on Friday, June 9, with the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, during Nikki Haley's three-day visit to Israel. In this meeting, the Israeli Defense Minister urged the U.S. to pressure Lebanon to expel Hamas leaders from the country. Concurrently with Liberman's statements, Osama Hamdan, Hamas's foreign relations chief, announced on Friday, June 9, that a senior Hamas delegation would be visiting Iran "soon." According to Osama Hamdan in an interview with Al-Manar, Hezbollah's television network, Ismail Haniyeh will lead the Hamas delegation on this "imminent" trip to Iran, accompanied by Yahya Sinwar, Hamas's internal leader in Gaza. Ismail Haniyeh, the former Prime Minister of Hamas in Gaza, was elected last month as the head of Hamas's political bureau, succeeding Khaled Mashal. Since the onset of the Syrian civil war, Hamas has refrained from supporting Bashar al-Assad's regime, aligning itself with some Syrian opposition groups aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood, which cooled its relations with Iran. However, the commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard two weeks ago referred to Hamas as still a member of the resistance front against the "Zionist regime" (Israel) in a congratulatory message to Haniyeh and Sinwar. This comes at a time when Hamas recently removed the clause calling for the destruction of Israel from its charter and recognized the state of Palestine for the first time within the 1967 borders. According to Israeli media, the Defense Minister stated during the meeting with Nikki Haley that several "dangerous" Hamas operatives in Lebanon are planning "new plots against Israel" as part of new cooperation with Hezbollah. Liberman specifically mentioned Saleh al-Arouri, stating that al-Arouri, along with two other senior Hamas members, is orchestrating these "new plots." According to Liberman, "al-Arouri has designed the deadliest attacks against Israel, and he should not be allowed to continue these activities." The Israeli Defense Minister told Haley that Lebanon is "a country with national sovereignty and has bilateral relations with the U.S.," and the U.S. can create pressure to expel al-Arouri and two other Hamas operatives from Lebanon. Israeli media report that the country's security organizations believe that Saleh al-Arouri was one of the planners behind the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers in the spring of 2014, which led to a large-scale military operation by the Israeli army against Hamas in Gaza. Al-Arouri was a security prisoner in Israeli jails, released by Israel in exchange for the freedom of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas. In recent years, al-Arouri had been living in Istanbul, Turkey, and also in Qatar. However, Israeli media say that Saleh al-Arouri has recently been expelled from Qatar and has gone to Lebanon. A few days before the relations between Saudi Arabia and several Arab and Muslim countries with Qatar were severed over "Qatar's support for terrorism," regional media reported that Qatar had expelled several Hamas leaders. Hamas leaders denied reports of their activists being driven out of Qatar. One day before her meeting with the Israeli Defense Minister, Haley was taken to visit the southern border of Israel with Gaza, accompanied by Danny Danon, Israel's ambassador to the UN, and General Aviv Kochavi, the deputy chief of staff of the Israeli army. Haley was shown a Hamas tunnel that remained from the 2014 war. At the same time, UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian aid, accused Hamas on Friday, June 9, of digging tunnels again beneath UNRWA schools in Gaza. Hamas denied the allegations made by the UN agency.