Iran, a longtime backer of Hamas, signaled its tacit acceptance of the Palestinian militant group’s cease-fire deal with Israel, which will include the release of all remaining hostages in Gaza.
As the agreement began taking shape earlier this week, Iran’s foreign ministry said Hamas had the right to take its own initiatives. But it warned the group that Israel would continue its “expansionist and racist plans” and might not hold up its end of the deal.
On Thursday, after the first phase of a cease-fire deal was agreed, Iran said it “has always supported any action or initiative aimed at ending the genocidal war” in Gaza, suggesting it supported the agreement.
Iran’s diminished regional standing is among the starkest shifts in regional dynamics since the war between Israel and Hamas began two years ago. The country had fostered a constellation of loosely aligned militant groups for decades.
But its ability to project power across the region has been vastly undercut through a series of setbacks over the past two years.
Israel killed the leadership of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. Iran lost another critical regional ally with the overthrow of the dictator Bashar al-Assad in Syria last December. And Israel’s 12-day war on Iran — joined by the United States in the final stage — badly battered the country’s nuclear and military facilities.
The country is still reeling from the cost inflicted by the war and is grappling with the dire economic fallout of the United Nations reimposing harsh economic sanctions.
Iran may now be looking for ways to reassert its influence in the Arab world through diplomatic outreach, including with its former Gulf rivals.
Since Israel’s attack on Hamas negotiators meeting in the Gulf nation of Qatar last month, Iran has tried to portray Israel as a greater threat to regional security, and itself as a potential partner.
That effort looked largely stymied by Arab countries flocking to support the new Israel-Hamas deal brokered by President Trump.
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