Leader Reiterates Support for Palestinians

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei reaffirmed Iran's support for the Palestinian nation against the Zionist regime in a letter to the chairman of Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh. 
"The Islamic Republic will spare no effort like before in supporting the oppressed Palestinian nation, upholding their rights and destroying the evil of the fake and occupying Zionist regime as a religious and moral duty and based on the values of the Islamic Revolution," he said in the letter published by IRNA. 
The Leader wrote the letter in response to Haniyeh's message on recent developments in Palestine. 
He expressed his thanks to the Palestinian resistance front for thwarting the plots of the United States and the Zionists, which made them face weakness and failure while bringing victory and honor to the Islamic nation.
"The worthless enemy, which has experienced irreparable losses, is pursuing its policy of expansionism and violation of Palestinians' absolute rights first through economic pressure and siege of Gaza, and second through negotiation and peace schemes, as well as compromise plans," he said.
Ayatollah Khamenei stressed that the brave Palestinians will not tolerate threats and enticements, and continue to resist force. 

Hamas-Fatah Agreement 

Hamas and its rival political group Fatah have recently agreed to work together to fight against Israel's planned annexation of large parts of occupied West Bank.
The plan, which aims to annex all illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the strategic Jordan Valley, amounts to one-third of the territory and is in line with a proposal by US President Donald Trump that envisages a demilitarized Palestinian state on a patchwork of disjointed parts of Palestinian territories.
In a rare joint news conference on Thursday, officials from the two groups said there was a national consensus against Israel's controversial plan that has also been widely criticized by much of the international community.
"We will put in place all necessary measures to ensure national unity" in efforts against Israel's plan, senior Fatah official, Jibril Rajub, said in Ramallah during the news conference, which was also addressed by Hamas official, Saleh al-Arouri, by video-link from Lebanon's capital Beirut, Aljazeera reported.     
"Today, we want to speak in a single voice," Rajub affirmed, reiterating the Palestinian leaders' call for an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with East Beit-ul-Moqaddas as its capital. 
The 1967 border, also known as the green line, is the demarcation line set out in the 1949 agreements between the armies of Israel and those of its neighbors (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria).
It marks the borders of Israel minus the areas it occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War, including East Beit-ul-Moqaddas, the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Golan Heights and Sinai Peninsula. 

Need for Active Diplomacy 

An Iranian expert on Palestinian affairs criticized Iran's lukewarm response in support of the recent agreement, calling for the activation of the country's regional diplomacy to play an active role in this regard. 
"Iran has shown no reaction and remained silent so far while other regional players such as Turkey and Russia have declared their position and welcomed this development," Seyyed Hadi Borhani was quoted as saying by ISNA. 
Borhani noted that Iran's support for reconciliation between Hamas and Fatah will reinforce it because Tehran is the main ally of one of this initiative's two sides. 
"Welcoming the reconciliation is in line with the Islamic Republic's general policies that support cooperation and unity among all regional forces against the Zionist regime's occupation and aggression," he said.