Senior Hamas official slams Iran

A senior Hamas official, Mousa Abu Marzouk, attacked Iran in a taped phone conversation that was leaked online on Sunday morning. Abu Marzouk can be heard saying that Iran has not provided Hamas with any aid since 2009 and that any Iranian declarations to the opposite are lies.

Furiously reacting to Iran's statements that it supports Palestinian resistance, Abu Marzouk said in the conversation that "the story is not as they describe it.

"They are incredibly manipulative people. We've received nothing from them since 2009. Everything they're saying is a lie."
Abu Marzouk also addressed Iran's excuses for halting weapons shipments to Hamas' armed wing in Gaza. "For every boat that they've lost since 2011, they claimed that it was on its way to us, for example the one that was caught by Nigeria," he said.

He also spoke about the improvement in Iranian-Russian relations following Russia's entry into the Syrian civil war.

"Right now (the Iranians) are trying to make agreements with the Russians. The Iranians are cunning, and we are the victims," Abu Marzouk said. He also stated that Iran made its support for Hamas conditional on the organization's exploitation of its ties with numerous countries, such as Sudan, in order to improve Tehran's relations with those same states.

Abu Marzouk's conversation was leaked to an al-Aswat newspaper reporter in Ramallah. The timing is significant, coming just days after a report emerged about Hezbollah's attempt to renew close ties between Iran and Hamas by setting up a meeting in Beirut between Abu Marzouk and senior Iranian officials.

The aim of the meeting was to try and win back Iranian support for Hamas in the wake of Tehran's spat with Saudi Arabia.

Hamas sources refused to confirm or deny the authenticity of the conversation, only saying that it is solely the intelligence services of countries such as Israel that are able to intercept phone calls.