Jordan approves visit of top Hamas leaders to attend funeral of spokesman

Jordan approves visit of top Hamas leaders to attend funeral of spokesman
Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior member of Hamas' Political Bureau, thanked the Jordanian king for allowing the movement's leaders to attend the funeral of Ibrahim Ghosheh, a former Hamas spokesman.
2 min read
Ismail Haniyeh [pictured] and Khaled Meshaal arrived in Jordan late Thursday [Getty - file]

A number of top Hamas officials attended the funeral of a former spokesman of the Palestinian Islamist group in Amman on Friday after their visit was approved by Jordan.

Ibrahim Ghosheh, who served as Hamas' official spokesman between the year 1991-1999, passed away on Thursday, aged 85.

An engineer by profession, Ghosheh was linked to Palestinian branches of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood before joining Hamas in 1989 as it emerged as a distinct group.

On Thursday, Izzat Al-Rishq, a senior member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, tweeted that Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of Hamas and Khaled Meshaal, the head of the political bureau had arrived in Jordan to attend Ghosheh’s burial.

In a subsequent tweet, Al-Rishq thanked the Jordanian king for agreeing to allow the leaders to pay their respects.

Hamas and Jordan have a chequered history. While initially cooperating with the movement in the first decade of its existence, when King Abdullah II’s came to power in 1999, the Hamas leadership was expelled from the Hashemite kingdom.

Jordan allowed entry for Hamas officials on certain occasions, such as in 2009, when Meshaal was granted entry to attend his father's burial. In 2012, Meshaal – who has Jordanian citizenship - returned on an official visit, and low-level visits have resumed since then.

A 2014 opinion poll by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy suggests that compared to other Arab countries, Hamas enjoys the strongest support in Jordan, with 72 per cent viewing the movement positively.

Tags