- Dec 29, 2008
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Iran paid the Islamist group Hamas to block a deal with the rival Fatah movement that would have ended a five-year rift between the two main Palestinian factions, a Fatah spokesman said on Tuesday.
He said Tehran recently resumed financial aid to Hamas which it had suspended six months ago over the Palestinian movement's failure to back their mutual ally President Bashar Assad of Syria in his military campaign to crush dissent.
Hamas has since turned overtly against Assad. But, according to Fatah, Iran is more concerned with supporting the armed Palestinian movement that is ready to challenge Israel from its Gaza Strip stronghold.
"We have information that Iran paid tens of millions of dollars to Zahar and Haniyeh in their visits to Iran," said Ahmed Assaf, referring to Hamas leaders Mahmoud Zahar who visited Tehran last week and Ismail Haniyeh who was there in February.
Assaf was responding to a comment by Zahar that Palestinian political reconciliation "is in the freezer now", despite a unity deal signed last month.
"Reconciliation is in the freezer because Zahar was the one who put it there and he got the price from Iran," Assaf told Reuters. "Zahar, Haniyeh and Hamas's Gaza leadership were paid by Iran to freeze reconciliation."
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"Iran has an interest in the division continuing. Iran realizes the importance of the Palestinian cause from the religious, political and geographic status and, therefore, it wants to control it," Assaf said.
If unity was restored and the Palestine Liberation Organization or any legitimate leadership ruled Gaza, Iran would lose its influence, he said.
Fatah: Iran paid Hamas to block Palestinian unity deal - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News