A delegation from Hamas visits Saudi Arabia for the first time in years
A source from the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) revealed that its President, Ismail Haniyeh, will visit Saudi Arabia today or tomorrow, Sunday, at the head of a leading delegation from the movement, after long years of rupture in relations between the two sides.
A Hamas source said on Saturday night that the visit, which is the first of its kind in years, comes at the official invitation of Riyadh and will pave the way for ending the tension between the two sides.
The source said that the visit is likely to take place on Sunday or Monday at the latest, indicating that it will include official meetings between the Hamas delegation and Saudi officials, and allowing the movement’s leaders to perform the rituals of Umra.
The Hamas delegation is expected to include Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of the movement’s political bureau, and Khaled Meshaal, the movement’s head abroad, along with other leaders of the Islamist movement.
The Hamas delegation’s visit will witness the announcement of the resumption of relations between the movement and Riyadh, and the turning of the page of the years-long estrangement between the two sides, Quds Daily News website reported.
He added that it is expected that the Saudi authorities will release, during or immediately after the visit, some Palestinian prisoners, affiliated with Hamas, who have been held in Saudi prisons for several years.
On October 19, Saudi authorities released former Hamas representative in Riyadh, Mohammed al-Khudari, and his son, after detaining them since 2019
Despite the lack of relations between Hamas and Saudi Arabia over the past years, the movement tried to get closer to Riyadh and communicate with it by all means. A delegation from the movement headed by Haniyeh, who heads the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip, visited Saudi Arabia on July 18, 2015, but the meeting did not lead to progress in relations.
The movement continued to move closer to the kingdom, with Haniyeh sending a letter to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to congratulate them on the success of the “Summit of Justice” to heal the rift in the Gulf on January 9, 2021.
The visit comes after a thaw in relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, an ally of Hamas, following continued efforts to resume formal and diplomatic relations between the two countries. The kingdom received Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad for the first time in 12 years.
The relationship between Hamas and Saudi Arabia was strained after the kingdom blamed the Islamist movement for the failure of the Mecca Agreement, which Riyadh brokered for reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas in the Gaza Strip in February 2007. “The Saudi State Security Investigations Department arrested dozens of activists from the movement, led by its representative Mohammed al-Khudari, on 4 April 2019, before releasing him on 19 October.”
