Hamas Leaders Meet With Nasrallah to Discuss Israel

Amid the tensions in the north, a Hamas delegation met on Saturday with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon.

The Hamas delegation was headed by the head of the Gaza-based terrorist organization’s political bureau chief Saleh Al-Arouri, and deputy Hamas leader in Gaza Khalil al-Hayya. According to recent reports, al-Hayya’s standing within the terrorist group was on the rise. Al-Arouri is responsible for Hamas’s terrorist attacks in Yehudah and Shomron.

Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets reported that the sides discussed the recent developments in the Palestinian arena, namely events in the east Yerushalayim neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The sides also reportedly discussed the future of the conflict with Israel and the political situation in the Middle East.

On Feb. 18, a Hezbollah-operated drone infiltrated northern Israel and was able to return safely to Lebanon. Several days earlier, Israel shot down drones launched from Gaza and Lebanon. At the same time, according to foreign reports, Israel attacked military positions near Damascus, used by Hezbollah to establish a “Golan Front” against Israel.

As a reminder, several months ago, Hamas leader abroad Khaled Mashaal visited Lebanon in the aftermath of the Dec. 10 explosion at the Burj al-Shemali refugee camp near Tyre. Killed in the blast was a Hamas engineer named Hamza Ibrahim Shahine, whose funeral turned into a gun battle between gunmen from Fatah and Hamas, leaving three people reportedly dead. Mashaal didn’t meet with Nasrallah at the time, and the belief is that the Assad regime’s animosity toward several of Hamas’s leaders was the reason why.

Two months before the blast, the mosque at Burj Al-Shimali was flagged as a main Hamas weapons manufacturing workshop in a detailed report by the Alma Research and Education Center, a security watchdog based in northern Israel.

“Hamas does not just see itself as a guest in Lebanon,” Maj. (res.) Tal Be’eri, who served for 20 years in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate and is now the director of the research department at the Alma Center, said at the time.