GAZA CITY: Syria’s civil war has caused a split within Hamas over whether to cling to Shia backers Damascus, Tehran and Hezbollah or side with Sunni allies such as Qatar, Egypt and Turkey, analysts say.
Some in the Islamist movement’s military wing insist that aid from Iran — a key Damascus ally — should not be shunned simply to publicly back the Sunni-led rebels fighting to overthrow Bashar Al Assad, Hamas sources said.
News of the split within the movement which rules the Gaza Strip coincides with reports that Iran has scaled down its financial support to the group.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal, who is behind the movement’s shift towards Sunni regimes, left his Damascus headquarters in 2012 for Doha after refusing to support Assad’s deadly crackdown. On Tuesday, Meshaal and his Gaza-based prime minister Ismail Haniyah were in Ankara, another rebel backer, to meet Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
And the previous day, Meshaal had called on Lebanon’s Hezbollah to pull its forces out of Syria and focus on resisting Israel, accusing it of contributing to “sectarian polarisation” in the region. Pan-Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi recently reported that leaders of Hamas’ armed wing the Ezzedine Al Qassam Brigades had warned Meshaal against getting too close to pro-Sunni nations, as this was having a negative impact on aid from Iran.
It was Tehran’s military support rather than Gulf financial support, they reminded him, that had enabled Hamas to face the last major Israeli assault on Gaza in November.AFP
