Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameni met with Hamas deputy leader, Saleh al-Arouri and a delegation of key Hamas officials this week.
In the meeting, Khameni stated that supporting Palestine “is an ideological and religious matter,” and strongly condemned the U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan, which he said the Palestinians have “precision missiles” to resist.
He said: “Confronting the Deal of the Century requires promotional, cultural, and intellectual efforts and the other method is to make the Palestinians feel advancement. Today Palestinians are equipped with precision missiles rather than stones and this means the feeling of advancement”.
The Iranian government and Hamas have a history of close relations, with Hamas Deputy Chief Al-Arouri having travelled to Iran at least five times in the last two years.
Khameni said he believes that the Middle East peace plan is “aimed at destroying the Palestinian identity”.
Hamas have launched over 20,000 rockets at Israel since 2001, and Iran is believed to be a major financial backer of Hamas.
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh told a group of Turkish journalists via video-conference on Saturday that he hopes the Hamas delegation’s visit in Iran would achieve “important results”.
