According to Beirut-based al-Akhbar daily, the recent blow dealt to Israel during the 11-day Gaza war was part of the liberation plan.

The Palestinian resistance adopted tactics used by Hezbollah during the 2006 war by setting up mock rocket launch sites to deceive the Israeli air force, the report said.

Yemen’s Ansarullah also communicated with Hamas and requested coordinates for the sites it wanted to target with missiles and drones, but Hamas told the popular movement not to intervene as long as the Israeli army had not crossed the “red lines.”

Tel Aviv began bombing Gaza on May 10, after Palestinian retaliation against violent raids on worshipers at the al-Aqsa Mosque and Israel’s plans to force a number of Palestinian families out of their homes at the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem al-Quds.

Apparently caught off guard by unprecedented rocket barrages from Gaza, Israel announced a unilateral ceasefire on May 21, which Palestinian resistance groups accepted with Egyptian mediation.

According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, 254 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli offensive, including 66 children and 39 women, and 1948 others were wounded.

In a televised speech last week, Lebanon’s Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned that any aggression against Jerusalem al-Quds or the city’s holy sites would mean a regional war.

“When holy sites face serious threats, there are no red lines,” he said. “All the resistance movements can’t sit back and watch if holy sites are in danger.”

Similarly, Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, warned of a regional war in case holy sites were attacked and that all resistance groups would coalesce in any future battle.

“Nasrallah should be taken seriously; he is Israel’s most credible enemy, he usually doesn’t make empty threats,” a senior Israeli security source told al-Monitor news website on the condition of anonymity. “The fact that he joined Sinwar at this timing and announced that any unilateral Israel move in Jerusalem would lead to war should be treated … as a very serious warning.”

Former Israeli lawmaker Zvi Hauser said, “This is probably the last time that Israel will confront Hamas alone. In the future, Israel will be challenged at the same time on additional fronts, such as the northern front, making the challenge much tougher.”

Hamas, Hezbollah, IRGC operation room  

In a TV program, al-Akhbar editor-in-chief Ibrahim al-Amin said that a joint operation room for the recent Gaza war was established in Beirut, where officers from Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) oversaw the conflict.

The operation room was not only a place to exchange experience and tactics, but also somewhere intelligence apparatuses operated, he added.

General Ismail Qa’ani, the head of the IRGC’s Quds Force, visited Beirut twice during the war, Amin said, noting that the Lebanese resistance also managed to transfer high-ranking Hamas officers to Beirut through “special routes”.

“Israel knows that the first outcome of Gaza’s victory is not Gaza linking with al-Quds, the West Bank and the 1948 Arabs – namely the resistance’s connection with other parts of Palestine – but the rest of Palestine joining the resistance axis,” he said.

“Nasrallah said the resistance in the Arab world should support Gaza. It means that this front is obliged to support Palestine even if there is no need to enter the war,” Amin added.

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IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK

TEHRAN – Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has assured Palestinian resistance fighters that as ever, Iran is always at their back and will not forsake its duty of confronting the occupying Israeli regime’s evil nature.

Ayatollah Khamenei addressed the remarks to Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, in a letter dated Saturday.

“The Islamic Republic, as before, does not stint on any effort to support the oppressed Palestinian people, redress their rights, and also fight off the bogus and usurping Zionist regime’s evil,” the Leader noted.

Iran stays true to the cause in line with its religious and humanitarian duty and also in keeping with the value-based principles of its Islamic Revolution, the letter noted.

The letter served as a response to one written by Haniyeh.

The Palestinian official had recently sent letters to more than 120 Arab and Muslim officials, calling on them to join hands in defense of the Palestinian cause, and devise mechanisms to stop Israel’s plan to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank, calling Tel Aviv’s decision “criminal and racist.”

Haniyeh underscored the importance of strong communication among Arab and Muslim parliaments.

Ayatollah Khamenei said he had paid close attention to Haniyeh’s message, expressing gratitude to the Palestinian resistance for its struggle and steadfastness in the face of the American and Israeli regimes.

The resistance’s struggle, the Leader said, has “caused weakness and frustration for them (the US and Israel), and has, on the other hand, awarded esteem and pride to the Muslim nation.”

After suffering “irreparable” defeats in the battleground, the “pitiable enemy” tried furthering its expansionist approach and attempts at violating Palestinians’ rights through laying a siege on the Gaza Strip and subjecting the coastal sliver to economic pressure, Ayatollah Khamenei’s letter read. The Leader was referring to the blockade that the Tel Aviv regime began to impose on Gaza after Hamas came to rule the enclave.

The Palestinian nation’s enemy then tried advancing its goals by way of the negotiation ploy and the so-called plan for peace and reconciliation, the letter added.

The courageous Palestinian nation, however, did not brook their threats and alleged incentives, and instead chose the path of “esteem and honor” as before by resorting to wisdom and experience and through its exemplary persistence, Ayatollah Khamenei stated.

“The Palestinian nation will continue down this straight path from now on too,” the Leader noted.

Ayatollah Khamenei finally hoped that alertness, unity, and integrity among the Palestinian people and factions proves effective in negating the enemy’s “sinister plans” and invites “divine victory.”

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Zarif and Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas Political Bureau, held a telephone conversation on Monday about the latest developments in Palestine.

In the conversation, Haniyeh referred to US attempts to introduce a draft resolution at the UN General Assembly to condemn the Palestinian resistance movement, and called on Iran to express its opposition to the move, according to the Iranian Foreign Ministry’s website.

For his part, the Iranian top diplomat underlined Tehran’s support for the rights of Palestinians.

He also expressed regret that the policies adopted by certain regional states have emboldened the US to not only violate international rights by moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem al-Quds, but also to introduce a draft resolution against Palestine’s Islamic resistance at the UN General Assembly.

Zarif also assured Haniyeh that Iran will do its best to unite other Islamic and progressive states at the General Assembly to prevent a ratification of the US-drafted resolution, which he said stands in contradiction to the UN Charter.

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