Heads of Iran-allied groups meet in Tehran

Leaders of the Iran-led, “axis of resistance”, including Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, discussed the war in Gaza during a meeting in Tehran on the sidelines of president Ebrahim Raisi’s funeral, state media reported Thursday.
The “axis of resistance” brings together Iran’s regional allies in the fight against Israel, including the Palestinian movement Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi Shiite groups.
The leaders of these movements met Wednesday after attending ceremonies organised in Tehran to pay tribute to Raisi, who died Sunday in a helicopter crash in northwest Iran.
The meeting was attended by Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s Qatar-based political bureau, as well as Hezbollah deputy Naim Qassem and Houthi spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam.
Haniyeh had also previously had an audience with Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Iranian officials meanwhile included General Hossein Salami, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, as well as General Esmail Qaani, commander of the Quds Force, the foreign operations branch of the guards.