Foreign relations of Hamas

[2] Hamas sent an official delegation to South Africa for the 10th anniversary of the death of Nelson Mandela, joining African National Congress minister Lindiwe Zulu at a wreath-laying event on 5 December 2023.

[5][6][7] The relations between Venezuela and Hamas have become more close under the presidencies of Hugo Chavez and Nicolas Maduro, due to the common opposition to the US.

Importantly, Israel frequently took a back seat to the Islamists' sometimes deadly power struggles with their secular, left-wing Palestinian counterparts in Gaza and the West Bank.

David Hacham, an Israeli military Arab relations specialist who operated in Gaza in the late 1980s and early 1990s, says, "When I look back at the chain of events, I think we made a mistake."

[38][39] As part of Turkey's objective to play a neutral role in the region, the country tries to be on speaking terms with both Israel and Hamas.

[44] Under the conservative leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become a stalwart supporter of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.

The case first ended in a mistrial, in which jurors acquitted on some counts and were deadlocked on charges ranging from tax violations to providing material support for terrorists.

[126] Several US organizations were either shut down or held liable for financing Hamas in early 2001, groups that have origins from the mid-1990s, among them the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), and Kind Hearts.

[127] In 2004, a federal court in the United States found Hamas liable in a civil lawsuit for the 1996 murders of Yaron and Efrat Ungar near Bet Shemesh, Israel.

[129] On August 20, 2004, three Palestinians, one a naturalized American citizen, were charged with a "lengthy racketeering conspiracy to provide money for terrorist acts in Israel".

[132] In January 2009, a Federal prosecutor accused the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) of having links to a charity designated as a support network for Hamas.

[136][better source needed] A German federal court ruled in 2004 that Hamas was a unified organization whose humanitarian aid work could not be separated from its "terrorist and political activities".

had "exploited trusting donors' willingness to help by using money that was given for a good purpose for supporting what is, in the final analysis, a terrorist organization".