Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was visiting Qatar on Thursday to meet leaders of Tehran-backed Palestinian terror group Hamas, a ministry statement said.
The ministry said he would meet senior Hamas officials “to hail the victory of the Palestinian people through 16 months of legendary resistance” in the Gaza Strip.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas led thousands of terrorists to invade southern Israel, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251 hostages to the Gaza Strip. The attack triggered a war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas.
The fighting later spread to include the Iran-backed group Hezbollah in Lebanon, which began to attack Israel from Lebanon the day after the Hamas assault, and also led to direct exchanges between the Islamic Republic and Israel.
During the war, Israel assassinated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was staying in Tehran for the inauguration of a new Iranian president. Iran twice fired missile barrages at Israel, both of which were largely thwarted by air defense systems. Israel hit back each time with airstrikes, the latter of which reportedly destroyed much of Iran’s air defense, as well as rocket and drone manufacturing sites.
Israel also decimated Hezbollah’s leadership and stockpiles in Lebanon until a separate ceasefire ended the fighting there in late November.
A three-phase ceasefire with Hamas — mediated by Qatar, the United States, and Egypt — began on January 19. The first stage calls for 33 Israeli hostages captured on October 7, 2023, to be freed in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli custody, hundreds of whom were convicted of deadly terror attacks on Israelis. The next stages have yet to be negotiated and will include the release of the remaining hostages, if agreed upon.
Three Israeli hostages were released from Gaza Thursday as part of the deal, along with five Thai workers who were also abducted during the Hamas attack, with 100 Palestinian security prisoners set to be released from Israel.
Araghchi also met Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani as part of talks with “Qatari officials on current developments in the region,” the Iranian foreign ministry said.
On Tuesday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said during a meeting in Tehran that “the small, limited Gaza brought the Zionist regime, armed to the teeth and fully supported by America, to its knees.”
On January 22 in Davos, Switzerland, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif acknowledged that Hamas’s attack on Israel had “destroyed” an opportunity for talks to revive a landmark nuclear accord between Iran and world powers.
Seventy-nine of the 251 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 remain in Gaza, including the bodies of at least 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
Hamas has so far released 15 hostages during the ceasefire that began this month. The terror group freed 105 civilians during a weeklong truce in late November 2023, and four hostages were released before that.
Eight hostages have been rescued by troops alive, and the bodies of 40 hostages have also been recovered, including three mistakenly killed by the Israeli military as they tried to escape their captors.
Hamas is also holding two Israeli civilians who entered the Strip in 2014 and 2015, as well as the body of an IDF soldier who was killed in 2014. The body of another IDF soldier, also killed in 2014, was recovered from Gaza this month.
Source » timesofisrael