HIZBALLAH,
TEHRAN DITCH PALESTINIAN HAMAS AFTER ITS FIGHTERS CAUGHT IN QUSAYR
Via DEBKAfile
HIZBALLAH
FIGHTERS IN AL-QUSAYR BATTLE
Hizballah
forces helping SYRIAN troops capture the key SYRIAN town of al Qusayr from
rebel hands last week caught five armed members of the radical Palestinian
Hamas fighting with the rebels, debkafile’s intelligence sources disclose. Within
hours of this discovery being reported to Hizballah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the
order to shut down Hamas offices in the Shiite Dahya neighborhood in Beirut
went down the Hizballah chain of command.
Wafiq
Safa, head of the organizations intelligence and terror wing, who commands the
organization’s war effort in SYRIA, summoned Ali Baraka, the Hamas envoy in
Beirut. He was told to shut down shop forthwith and remove himself and staff
from the LEBANESE capital. Hamas cells in SOUTHERN LEBANON were likewise expelled. Ali
Baraka hurriedly moved his people over to the southern port of Sidon, which is
outside Hizballah’s turf. Nasrallah also suspended all military and technical
assistance to the Hamas military arm, Ezz a-din al-Qassam - both in LEBANON and
the Gaza Strip - after years of close cooperation between the two radical
terrorist organizations.
HOLD UP ON LATEST INSTALLMENT OF IRAN’S FINANCIAL AID
TO THE GAZA STRIP REGIME
Before
breaking off ties with the Palestinian group, the Hizballah high command
conferred with the Iranian al Qods Brigades chief, Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
Tehran has not commented on the break-up with its Palestinian protégé, except to hold up the latest installment of IRAN’S financial aid to the Gaza Strip regime. Queries from Gaza elicited evasive answers from Tehran.
The rupture with Hizballah and IRAN has left the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip in serious financial straits. Its allocation from QATAR was sharply reduced this year; the SAUDIS stopped all assistance last year and Hamas’s parent organization, EGYPT’S Muslim Brotherhood, has since assuming power in Cairo been struggling with its own government’s empty coffers.
Tehran has not commented on the break-up with its Palestinian protégé, except to hold up the latest installment of IRAN’S financial aid to the Gaza Strip regime. Queries from Gaza elicited evasive answers from Tehran.
The rupture with Hizballah and IRAN has left the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip in serious financial straits. Its allocation from QATAR was sharply reduced this year; the SAUDIS stopped all assistance last year and Hamas’s parent organization, EGYPT’S Muslim Brotherhood, has since assuming power in Cairo been struggling with its own government’s empty coffers.
HAMAS RUNS WEST BANK OPERATIONS FROM TURKEY
In
panicky conferences in Istanbul, Gaza and Cairo, Hamas leaders decided their
only recourse was to send peace delegations to Tehran and Beirut in the hope
that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Nasrallah would relent and
resume the flow of financial aid.
Hamas
politburo member Emad al-Alami heads the delegation to Tehran and Salah
al-Arouri, who runs Hamas operations on the West Bank from TURKEY, leads the
delegation to Beirut.
Both are still cooling their heels and waiting for appointments.
Both are still cooling their heels and waiting for appointments.
SHARPENED DISCORD WITHIN HAMAS LEADERSHIP
The
new situation has sharpened the discord within the Hamas leadership between the
faction in favor of IRAN and SYRIA, headed by strongman Mahmoud A-Zahar and the
deputy commander of the Ezz a-din al-Qassam, Marwan Issa, on the one hand, and,
on the other, the reinstated head of the politburo Khaled Meshaal, who
sent the Hamas contingent to fight with the SYRIAN rebels against Bashar
Assad and his Hizballah allies.
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