• Report: Iran financing Hamas’ military force reconstruction efforts - Diplomacy and Defense - Israel News | Haaretz
    http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.650525

    Tens of millions of dollars have been transferred to Hamas for the rebuilding of tunnels destroyed by Israel last summer, the Sunday Telegraph reports.

    Iran has allocated millions of dollars to Hamas’ military wing for the rebuilding of the tunnels destroyed by Israel during last summer’s war in Gaza, the Sunday Telegraph reported.

    Citing intelligence sources, the report said Iran was also funding new missile supplies to help restock projectile weapons used by the militant organization to target Israeli civilian population during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge.

    According to Arab media reports, Hamas and Iranian officials have been meeting in Tehran in recent months. The relationship began warming after the Gaza war last summer. Last month, Hamas leader Khaled Meshal met with Iran’s speaker of parliament Ali Larijani, Palestinian sources close to Hamas told Haaretz.

    Ties between Hamas and Tehran were close before the group broke with Syrian President Bashar Assad during the Syrian civil war. Hamas, which belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood axis, had refused to support the Iranian-backed regime’s massacre of the Sunni opposition.

    At the time, Hamas thought that this move wouldn’t exact too high an economic price, thanks to the support it received from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood-led government. That calculation collapsed when Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi was ousted. Egypt’s new government, led by Abdel-Fattah al-Sissi, is waging war on the Brotherhood and all its branches, first and foremost Hamas.