By KEMI KASUMU with agencies’ reports
Update from the Middle-East conflict area – undergoing missiles pounding from arsenals of the State of Israel on Palestinian people of Gaza Strip and its environs – has it that the oppression resistant group, Hamas, has sent a delegation to Russia for talks with the Federation’s authorities.
The update on Friday showed the senior Hamas delegation, led by Mousa Abu Marzook who is a founder and political leader of Hamas, travelled to Moscow to meet Russian foreign ministry officials in the organisation’s first high-profile international visit since it launched what western nations continue to call surprise raid in southern Israel on 7 October, killing an estimated 1,400 people mainly Israeli soldiers and taking hostages mainly soldiers numbering up to 220.
The Abu Marzook delegation met the Russian deputy foreign minister, Mikhail Bogdanov. Abu Marzook, who lives on exile in Qatar, travelled to Moscow after an earlier meeting in Doha with Bogdanov and the Iranian deputy foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani.
A photograph released by Hamas showed Bassem Naeem, its head of international relations, and Mousa Abu Marzouk, a senior member of the Hamas politburo, in a meeting with Mikhail Bogdanov, Putin’s special envoy in the Middle East.
According to The Guardian, a foreign medium, the delegation was confirmed by representatives of Hamas and by Russia, and a photo showed the three men meeting at the Russian foreign ministry in Moscow.
“Abu Marzook, a member of the political bureau of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, is in Moscow,” said the Russian foreign ministry in a statement.
“Contact with him took place in pursuit for the immediate release of foreign hostages held in the Gaza Strip, and issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from the territory of the Palestinian enclave were discussed.”
Earlier this month, Bogdanov had said he wanted to meet Hamas representatives in Qatar in order to discuss the release of Israeli hostages. At least six of the 220 hostages held by Hamas have Russian citizenship, according to the Israeli government.
“If they are willing, we always are in favour of contact,” Bogdanov told state media earlier this month. “Especially in this situation, (a meeting) would be useful for solving practical issues, including the freeing of hostages.”
The visit has taken place as Russia appears to have aligned with Hamas and its ally Iran in a growing global divide between east and west.
Vladimir Putin this week warned that an Israeli ground invasion of Gaza could lead to a broader regional conflict, saying that “our main task is to stop the bloodshed and violence … otherwise, further escalation of the crisis is fraught with grave and extremely dangerous and destructive consequences. And not only for the Middle East region. It could spill over far beyond the borders of the Middle East.”
In a statement, Hamas representatives said they had told Bogdanov that they “highly valued Putin’s position and the efforts of Russian diplomacy” in the conflict, Russian state media reported.
Thursday’s delegation is the third from Hamas to Moscow in the past year and Marzook has regularly met Bogdanov and the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
Russian foreign ministry officials have met Hamas delegations since 2006, when the organisation contested elections and then expelled the rival Palestinian movement Fatah.
bloc in Brussels.
“The European Council expresses its gravest concern for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Gaza and calls for continued, rapid, safe and unhindered humanitarian access and aid to reach those in need through all necessary measures including humanitarian corridors and pauses for humanitarian needs,” a declaration adopted by the leaders said.
The bloc’s 27 member states have long been split between more pro-Palestinian members such as Ireland and Spain, and staunch backers of Israel including Germany and Austria.
There were also signs of a possible fracture in the anti-Israel coalition of Islamist groups, as Hamas suggested Hezbollah was not fighting enough in the north.
Hezbollah is speculated to have been involved in the planning of the Oct 7 attack on Israel and has repeatedly traded cross-border fire with Israel in recent weeks, but has held back from a full-scale assault from Lebanon to date.
Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, met with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders on Wednesday to discuss how to achieve “victory” over Israel.
