Senior official of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, Abdulaziz al-Minawi (L), Hamas arab relations chief Khalil al-Hayya (C), and secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Talal Naji, hold a press conference during a visit to the Syrian capital Damascus on October 19, 2022. (Credit: AFP)
DAMASCUS — Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad welcomed a delegation from Hamas in Damascus on Wednesday.
The Palestinian militant group said the meeting could help “turn the page,” after shunning the Syrian presidency for a decade, according to delegation head Khalil al-Hayya.
Hamas leaders publicly endorsed the 2011 Sunni street uprising against al-Assad’s rule and vacated their Damascus headquarters in 2012, a move that angered their common ally, Iran.
Normalizing ties with Assad could help restore Hamas’s inclusion in a so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel, which includes Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, natural allies of Assad, whose Alwaite group is a Shiite offshoot.
“We consider it a historic meeting and a new start for joint Syrian-Palestinian action,” Hayya told a press conference. “We agreed with the president to move beyond the past.”
He said several factors had encouraged the rapprochement now, including Israel’s development of ties with other Arab countries. “The Palestinian cause today needs an Arab supporter,” Hayya said.
Hamas has already restored its ties to Iran, with party officials praising the Islamic Republic for its contribution to their Gaza arsenal of longer-range rockets, which they have used to fight Israel. It has eased into reconciliation with Syria more slowly, fearing a backlash from its mostly Sunni financiers and other supporters, given that most of the victims of Assad’s crackdown in Syria were Sunnis.
Palestinian political analyst Mustafa Sawwaf said Hamas’s reconciliatory move toward Syria aims to create new ground for the Palestinian militant group.
“I think most of the territories where Hamas is present began to narrow, including Turkey, and therefore, the movement wanted to find other ground, from which it can continue to operate,” Sawwaf told Reuters.