The Hamas Political Bureau Chief made the revelation during an interview with the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera Network while praising the Islamic Republic.
By Jonathan Hessen and Erin Viner
While emphasizing that ‘Hamas is not fighting a proxy war for Iran,’ Ismail Haniyeh acknowledged that the Ayatollah regime and his Palestinian faction are operating in full cooperation against their “common enemy Israel.”
He went on to reveal that Iran has funneled roughly $70 million solely earmarked for combating the Jewish State, including development of the Gaza-rulers’ rocket arsenal and defensive infrastructure.
Haniyeh lauded Tehran for its support of Hamas during the “Sword of Jerusalem” battle, the name by which Hamas refers to the 11-day Operation Guardian of the Walls conflict with Israel last May.
He went on to declare that the fighting was merely a “rehearsal for the Liberation of Palestine” – in reference to the Hamas Charter which pledges to raise the armies of Islam for the purpose of conquering all of the lands of Israel ‘from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.’
Hamas, an acronym in Arabic for the “Islamic Resistance Movement,” clearly identifies with the global Muslim Brotherhood by inclusion in its Charter of the Islamist Movement slogan: “Allah is its goal, the Prophet is the model, the Qur’an (Koran) its constitution, Jihad its path, and death for the sake of Allah its most sublime belief.”
While both terror groups belong to Sunni-Islam, Hamas has nevertheless embraced the Ayatollah Regime as a patron for the shared campaign to annihilate the Jewish State, while the Muslim Brotherhood abhors the Shi’ite Islamic Republic of Iran.