Leaders of various Palestinian factions including Hamas and Yemeni Houthi rebels met last week to discuss the
"coordination"
of their actions against Israel, Palestinian and Houthi sources told AFP.
An
“important meeting was held last week”
attended by senior officials from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Marxist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), with Houthi cadres, one said. from these sources on the Palestinian side, who requested anonymity.
During this meeting, whose names of participants were not revealed, the leaders of these factions discussed the
"mechanisms for coordinating their resistance actions regarding the next stage"
of the war since October 7 between Israel and Hamas, added this source.
A Houthi official who requested anonymity told AFP on Saturday that the meeting took place in Beirut and that it focused on an
“expanding clashes and the encirclement of the Israeli entity, as this was announced on Thursday by Abdel Malek al-Houthi
, the leader of the Houthis.
“The axis of resistance”
Another Palestinian official, who also requested anonymity, told AFP that the meeting had made it possible to discuss the
"complementary role of Ansar Allah (another name given to the Houthis, Editor's note) alongside the Palestinian factions, particularly in the event of "Israeli offensive on Rafah"
, in the far south of the Gaza Strip, where 1.5 million Palestinians are massed.
Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Houthis are notably part of
the “axis of resistance”
, a grouping of movements hostile to Israel and the United States, supported by Iran, and which also includes the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi militias.
In the wake of the war between Israel and Hamas, triggered by the deadly attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement on Israeli territory on October 7, the Houthis have increased attacks against merchant and sometimes military ships off the coast of Yemen, in “
solidarity »
with the Palestinians of Gaza.
In a speech delivered Thursday evening, the leader of the Houthis affirmed that his movement would
“continue and expand the scope of (its) operations”
.