GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas called on Iran on Saturday to refrain from targeting neighbouring countries, while affirming Tehran’s right to defend itself against Israel and the United States. In a rare appeal, Hamas also urged the international community to take steps to end the war that has gripped the Middle East since it began on February 28.
“While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighbouring countries,” Hamas said in a statement, its first such public appeal to Tehran.
Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah, meanwhile, has fired hundreds of rockets at Israel since it joined the Middle East war, sending Israelis in the country’s north fleeing to shelters.
Israeli strikes targeting the group have killed nearly 800 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to the Lebanese health ministry.
Hamas, which fought a devastating two-year war with Israel in Gaza, also called on the international community to “work towards halting” the Middle East conflict immediately.
The group previously condemned the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war as a “heinous crime”, openly acknowledging his longstanding support for the Palestinian movement.
“He provided all forms of political, diplomatic and military support to our people, our cause and our resistance,” the movement said soon after his death.
