Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi meets with Palestinian group Hamas' top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, Iran March 27, 2024.
The head of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, met with Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi on Wednesday during a trip to Tehran's top leadership amid the war in Gaza.
Haniyeh and the "Palestinian" delegation also met with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, where Khamenei reiterated Iran's support for his terrorist proxy and condemned Israel's retaliatory attacks in the wake of the war waged by the Palestinian Islamist group in October when they committed the most horrific slaughtering of Jews since the Holocaust .
Khamenie has long called for the eradication of the Israel. His brutal theocratic regime is the greatest state sponsor of terrorism and antisemitism in the world. Its hegemonic ideology seeks domination of the Middle East as a first step in conquering all those - Muslim, Christian and Jew - who do not espouse its barbaric creed. Hamas was founded for the purpose of destroying Israel as evidence by its Founding Charter which instructs
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
The visit marks Haniyeh's second trip to Tehran since the Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7 which resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 mostly civilians, and the kidnapping of more than 250 to Gaza.
The meetings with Iran's top leadership reveal the high-level connections Hamas, which has been designated a terrorist organization by both the United States and the United Kingdom, has with Iran, which has long financed, trained and weaponized its murderous terrorist proxy.
Last year, Haniyeh also held several top level meetings with Iranian leaders alongside fellow proxies such as Hezbollah, also funded, trained and armed by Iran.
Israel has explained that it needs to complete its operation in Rafah to win the existential war in Gaza - specifically to fulfill its objectives of defeating Hamas, rescuing the hostages, ensuring there will not be another 10/7 massacre (Hamas leaders have vowed to conduct more) and providing for the security of Israel. The complete and utter defeat of Hamas is critical to the civilized world so that jihadists around the world are not incentivized to commit 10/7 like atrocities.
The latest visit comes on the back of this week's UN Security Council perplexing resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza amid a purported humanitarian crisis.
During a press conference in Tehran, Haniyeh claimed the resolution “signals Israel's waning international support”.