Syria opposition slams Hamas' plans to restore ties with regime

The National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces has criticised the Palestinian Resistance Movement Hamas’ plans to restore relations with the Syrian regime of Bashar Al-Assad after a ten-year hiatus, Anadolu reported.

This came after a senior Hamas official and head of its Arab and Islamic Relations Office, Khalil Al-Hayya confirmed that the movement’s institutions have “approved efforts to restore relations with Damascus”.

On 21 June, several media outlets reported that Hamas has decided to restore ties with the Syrian regime.

READ: The massacres of Syrian civilians must not go unpunished

Meanwhile, Anadolu reported an unnamed Palestinian source as saying that “the two sides will open a new phase in their relations in the coming period”, explaining that the Lebanese group, Hezbollah has exerted “tireless efforts” to mediate between the two sides.

The coalition considered Hamas’ decision to retore relations with the “criminal Assad regime” as contradictory to “the brotherly Palestinian people’s position, who expressed their support for the Syrians in many honourable positions.”

“If Hamas puts its hand in the hands of a criminal sectarian regime, it will lose the nation’s audience and will not win the Assad regime, which harbours a deep-seated hatred for it and all Palestinians which has became obvious during the years of the revolution, through killing, displacement, arrest and massacres, the last of which was revealed by the Tadamon massacre,” the statement read.

The London-based Action Group for Palestinian Syria, a human rights organisation specialising in monitoring the conditions of Palestinian refugees in Syria, said it has documented “the execution of 16 Palestinian refugees by the Syrian regime forces in Tadamon neighbourhood [near Damascus in Apri 2013], in addition to the disappearance of dozens of Palestinians in the same neighborhood.”

The Coalition warned that Hamas will not achieve any gains for the Palestinian by siding with the axis of “sabotage, murder, rape and torture to death”.Hamas had used Damascus as the headquarters for its leadership abroad, until 2012 when the group left the country following the start of the Syrian civil war.

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