The top leaders of the militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas held talks in Beirut on Tuesday about last month’s 11-day war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian Hamas, arrived in Lebanon on Sunday and met several top officials, including President Michel Aoun and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri — both of them seen as broadly aligned with the Iran-backed terror group.
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Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, right, meeting with Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon
(Photo: AP)
On Tuesday, Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah discussed how they can build on the experience of the latest round of violence.
The bruising war had caused widespread destruction in the Gaza Strip, brought life in much of Israel to a standstill.
There were no comments after the meeting that brought Nasrallah and Haniyeh together. It was the first between the two since September.
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Streaks of light are seen as Israel's Iron Dome anti-missile system intercept rockets launched from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, as seen from Ashkelon, during the fighting last month
(Photo: Reuters)
During the war, Hamas and other terror groups fired over 4,000 rockets into Israel with dozens of projectiles flying as far north as Tel Aviv, a bustling commercial and cultural hub. Israeli airstrikes and shelling caused wide destruction in Gaza.
After the end of the war in Gaza, Haniyeh visited Egypt for Palestinian reconciliation talks. He later visited Morocco and Mauritania before arriving in Lebanon as part of a blitz of meetings across the Arab world.