The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization sent a delegation to Iran this weekend to meet with officials on ways to “strengthen the intifada” in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, according to a statement issued by the group.
PIJ secretary-general Ramadan Abdullah told Palestinian Authority media the delegation is slated to meet with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and Supreme National Security Council chief Ali Shamkhani over the next several days.
On the agenda were the terror group’s claims that Israel is trying to “Judaize” the Al Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, and the need to keep funding the terror groups in Gaza.
Abdullah lamented “the Arab indifference toward Palestine and its oppressed people” in a statement to the media.
In response, Ali Akbar Velayati, head of the Strategic Research Center of the Iranian Expediency Council, vowed Iran would continue to “support the Palestinian people and continue fighting against terror and the Zionist entity, together with all Muslim states.”
The trip, which appeared to be an appeal for money, comes after a lean year in which Iran bestowed its beneficence instead on a new Shi’ite terror group in Gaza called Al-Sabireen.
More money for Al-Sabireen meant less funding for PIJ and its associate, Hamas, which has instead begun to build a relationship with Sinai Province – the former Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis terror group that abandoned its ties to Al Qaeda and pledged its allegiance to ISIS.
The PIJ delegation met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, as well as other senior Iranian officials.
“In these meetings the parties discussed the current circumstances prevailing in the Islamic nation and especially… ways to bolster the intifada in the West Bank and Jerusalem opposing the Zionist expansionism,” a delegation spokesperson said.