Gazans react to U.S.-Iran MOU

“Iran betrayed Gaza and betrayed Hamas,” locals tell Jusoor News.

The newly signed Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the U.S. excludes Gazans and caps years of betrayal by the Islamic Republic, locals across the coastal territory told Jusoor News.

“We counted on them but they didn’t do anything for us,” a young man said. “Gaza hasn’t gotten even a single food box, not one carton marked ‘Iranian aid for Gaza.’” Iran’s new deal with the U.S. is “an agreement made for itself,” another said, “... for its own funds, oil, and interests.”

Though Tehran goaded Hamas into launching the October 7 attacks, locals observed, it left Gaza to languish. “Iran only got involved after Israel bombed targets inside Iran, and that was after about a year and a half of war,” one man said.

Gazans attributed this neglect to a Shi’ite sectarian worldview that leaves Sunni Gaza an afterthought to the protection of Shi’ite Hezbollah. “Iran is ruled by a Shi’ite regime,” one resident noted. Whereas in Syria, Tehran sent its Shi’ite militias to perpetrate the “persecution, killing, and rape” of Sunnis, he said, it has now thrown a lifeline to Hezbollah, which Iran hopes will transform Lebanon into an “entirely Shi’ite” country.

These sentiments would seem to place Hamas in an awkward position, having long touted its support from Iran. But Hamas spokesman Abu Obayda held the line in a statement Friday. “The enemy … is trying to divide the resistance fronts, but its efforts are in vain,” he declared, and congratulated “the Mujahideen of Hezbollah for continuing to inflict shocking losses on the Zionist enemy.”

For an older resident, Gazans don’t need allies who commit them to war. “We need to get out of this … terrible situation,” he said. “It’s like a table that has been flipped upside down.”