Hamas Tries to Push Gaza Onto the Iran-US Talks Agenda

Hamas held a phone call this week with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in what appears to have been an effort to insert Gaza into the ongoing Iran-US negotiations. The call, reported on Tuesday, took place between Araghchi and Basem Naim, Hamas’s deputy head of Arab and Islamic relations, as talks between Tehran and Washington continue and also involve understandings on the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

According to Hamas, the two discussed the latest developments in the Iran-US negotiations, the Palestinian issue, and the situation in the Gaza Strip. Naim thanked Iran for its position on the Palestinian question and for its continuing support for Gaza. Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday that Araghchi told Naim the Iranian delegation would raise the Palestinian issue in the talks, along with what he called Israel’s “ongoing aggression,” in international forums.

The Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat said this was the second Hamas-Iran conversation in June. On June 4, Araghchi spoke with Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s leader in Gaza and head of its negotiating delegation. In that call, however, there was no explicit claim that Gaza had been folded into the Iran-US talks, and the statement only referred to the Iranian delegation’s position calling for a halt to fighting on all regional fronts.

Two senior Hamas sources outside the Palestinian territories told the newspaper the Naim-Araghchi call was part of Hamas’s wider outreach to different actors to advance a ceasefire in Gaza. One source stressed that this does not replace the negotiation track mediated by Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. The sources added that Hamas wants Iran to pressure the current talks to put Gaza on the agenda, similar to Tehran’s role in the Lebanon ceasefire, and they said Hamas views developments in Lebanon as positive and hopes to leverage them for Gaza as well.