COGAT Major General Yoav Mordehai on Sunday noted that Hamas is "proud" of the fact that it has become Gaza's version of Hezbollah. COGAT is an acronym for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, responsible for implementing government civil policy in Area C of Judea and Samaria, the area under Israeli jurisdiction, and for overseeing the transfer of supplies to Gaza each day.
On his much read Facebook page, Mordehai wrote in Arabic that "Hamas is 'selling' the Sunni residents of Gaza in exchange for Persian money."
"Saleh al-Arouri, an official in the Iranian conspiratorial secretive movement known as Hamas, mourned the death of Suleimani’s father. Terrorist Hamas does not hide the fact that it has become a duplicate of Hezbollah in Gaza, but instead is proud of it."
Al-Arouri, founding commander of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and now deputy political bureau head of Hamas, travelled to Tehran on Saturday for the funeral of the father of Qassim Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds Force
He also said Hamas' delegation in the "religious jurist state" of Iran "takes orders" from the Iranian government, acting as if it were Iran's "slave."
On October 20, Hamas sent a delegation to Iran, to discuss reconciliation with the Palestinian Authority's leading Fatah group.
This past summer, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh thanked Iran for its "unlimited" support for the Al-Qassam Brigades and its contribution to the development of Hamas's military capabilities, an indication that the rift was over.