Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal at a news conference in Tehran, Iran, 2008. Photo: wiki commons

JNS.org – The Palestinian terror group Hamas has indicated that it is rekindling ties with old patron Iran.

“Relations between us are now almost back to how they were before [the crisis over Syria]. We believe we will soon be back at that point,” Taher al-Nounou, an aide to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, told The Guardian.

For years, Iran and Syria were Hamas’s main patrons, providing the terror group with financing, training, and weapons to attack Israel. But when protests broke out against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, exiled Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal voiced support for Syrian demonstrators. Mashaal eventually closed the terror group’s office in Damascus and relocated to Qatar. As a result, Iran began cutting off funding to Hamas.

According to The Guardian, Mashaal has met several times with Iranian officials and may visit Tehran soon. Hamas has been hit hard by last summer’s ouster of Islamist Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas’s parent organization. Egypt’s new military government has accused Hamas of supporting terror groups in the Sinai, sealed off the Gaza border, and destroyed smuggling tunnels— Hamas’s main source of income.