Hamas on Saturday asked Iran to avoid targeting neighboring countries, while affirming Tehran’s right to defend itself against Israel and the United States.
Hamas, which the US continues to designate as a terrorist group, has also called on the international community to take steps to end war which has been held in the Middle East since it began on February 28.
“While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this violence with all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the organization asks the Iranian brothers to refrain from targeting neighboring countries,” Hamas said in a statement – its first public appeal to Tehran.
Hamas, which fought hard Two years of war with Israel in Gazahe also called on the international community to “work to stop” the ongoing war as soon as possible.
The group has previously condemned fraud the assassination of Iran’s supreme leaderAli Khamenei, on the first day of the war as a “heinous crime,” openly admitting his long-term support for the Palestinian Authority.
“He provided all kinds of political, diplomatic and military support to our people, our cause, and our resistance,” the organization said after Khamenei’s assassination.
His son Mojtaba Khameneiwho has been appointed as Iran’s new supreme leader, is “injured and possibly disabled,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. said Friday.
A Hamas official told AFP that the organization was in contact with Iranian officials on the matter.
“The Israeli government wants to inflame tensions between Iran and its Arab and Muslim neighbors,” said the source, who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to brief the media.
“Hamas leadership has reached out to officials in many countries, including Qatar, Turkey, and Iraq, urging them to work to stop American and Zionist violence against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.
In addition to facing heavy firepower from the US and Israel, Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against at least 10 countries.
Qatar said it intercepted two missiles on Saturday, after explosions were heard in the capital Doha and authorities said they had been evacuated from other areas. The US embassy in Qatar said on Saturday it “continues to maintain shelter for all remaining emergency workers.”
Hamas’ appeal to Iran comes as its ally, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, has thrown itself back into the conflict, firing hundreds of rockets into Israel shortly after the war broke out.
Hezbollah entered the war after Khamenei’s assassination, and since then Israeli strikes have killed nearly 800 people in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry. More than 1,200 people have been killed in Iran, government officials said.
At least 13 members of the US were killed since the US and Israel started a war with Iran on Feb. 28.
