Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders visit Iran as West Bank tensions increase

Ismail Haniyeh met with the Iranian president to discuss several 'key issues related to the Palestinian cause'

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, right, with Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Tehran on Tuesday. EPA

Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas's political bureau, has been leading a delegation of the Palestinian movement on a visit to Tehran where they met Iranian officials, including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.

Mr Haniyeh held talks with the Iranian president on Tuesday after arriving in Tehran a day earlier on a visit to discuss several key issues related to the Palestinian cause, according to a statement by Hamas.

“Even those who once sought to negotiate with the Zionist regime and its supporters have come to the conclusion that it is useless to talk to the Israelis and that resistance is the only way to deal with the regime,” Mr Raisi told the Iranian Irna news agency after his meeting with the Hamas leader.

Mr Haniyeh affirmed Iran’s continued support for the Palestinian cause and said that the “Resistance Front is today expanding its power not only in the Gaza Strip, but also in the occupied West Bank and in the lands occupied since 1948”.

The visit to Tehran came after Ziad Al Nakhala, secretary general of Islamic Jihad, arrived separately in Tehran to meet Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and other high-profile Iranian officials.

Both Hamas and the PIJ’s leadership meetings in Tehran started on Monday after Israel carried out a deadly raid on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin, in which seven Palestinians were killed, including a militant from the Islamic Jihad group.

The latest casualty was a 15-year-old girl who died of her wounds after being shot by Israeli forces during the incursion, the Palestinian health ministry said on Wednesday.

Israeli forces arrested three people on Wednesday in a Palestinian village the military said was home to assailants who killed four Jews near a settlement in the occupied West Bank.

The army said Israeli forces detained three "wanted people" in Orif village in the northern West Bank.