Hamas calls on Iran to stop “targeting neighboring countries”

Hamas on Saturday called on Iran to refrain from targeting neighboring countries, while affirming Tehran’s right to defend itself against Israel and the United States.

Hamas, which the U.S. continues to designate as a terrorist group, also urged the international community to take steps to end the war that has gripped the Middle East since it began on February 28.

“While affirming the right of the Islamic Republic of Iran to respond to this aggression by all available means in accordance with international norms and laws, the movement calls on the brothers in Iran to avoid targeting neighboring countries,” Hamas said in a statement — its first such public appeal to Tehran.

Hamas, which fought a devastating two-year war with Israel in Gaza, also called on the international community to “work towards halting” the ongoing war immediately.

The group previously condemned the killing of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, on the first day of the war as a “heinous crime,” openly acknowledging his longstanding support for the Palestinian movement.

“He provided all forms of political, diplomatic and military support to our people, our cause, and our resistance,” the movement said soon after the killing of Khamenei.

His son Mojtaba Khamenei, who was named Iran’s new supreme leader, is “wounded and likely disfigured,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday. 

A Hamas official told AFP that the movement has been in contact with Iranian officials over the issue.

“The Israeli occupation seeks to sow discord between Iran and its Arab and Islamic neighbors,” the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

“Hamas’s leadership has also reached out to officials in several countries, including Qatar, Turkey, and Iraq, urging them to work towards halting the American and Zionist aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.

Despite facing superior U.S. and Israeli firepower, Iran has retaliated with missile and drone attacks against at least 10 countries.

Qatar said it intercepted two missiles on Saturday, after blasts were heard in the capital Doha and authorities said they had evacuated some areas. The U.S. Embassy in Qatar said Saturday it “continues to maintain shelter-in-place for all remaining emergency personnel.”

Hamas’s appeal to Iran comes as its ally, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, has once again thrown itself into the conflict, firing hundreds of rockets at Israel in the immediate aftermath of the war’s outbreak.

Hezbollah entered the fighting after Khamenei’s killing, and since then Israeli strikes have killed nearly 800 people in Lebanon, according to the country’s health ministry. More 1,200 people have been killed in Iran, government authorities have said.

At least 13 U.S. service members have been killed since the U.S. and Israel launched the war with Iran on Feb. 28.