Spotlight on Sinn Fein-Hamas relations: Party had met with key figures including the then-overall leader Khaled Mashal - said Hamas must 'not be demonised or excluded'

Following the escalation of violence in the Middle East, the News Letter has taken a look at these connections.

In May 2021, the party’s national chairman Declan Kearney wrote a piece titled “There is no equivalence between the oppressor and the oppressed in Palestine”, and called on the international community “to decide which side it takes”.

In December 2018, Mary Lou McDonald led a party delegation including Declan Kearney MLA and Pat Sheehan MLA to Palestine.

According to a Sinn Fein newsletter, this was for "meetings with senior Palestinian leaders, activists and refugees" in the West Bank, during which she laid a wreath at the mausoleum of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (the founder of Fatah, Hamas' political rival).

In a piece in 2017 Mr Kearney wrote about leading “a Sinn Fein delegation to meet with representatives from the Hamas leadership in Istanbul” (accompanied by a picture of him with Dr Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy head of the Political Bureau of Hamas).

In the article Mr Kearney said “no Palestinian political faction or section of society should be demonised or excluded from the conflict resolution process,” adding that “we are committed to engaging on an even-handed basis with all Palestinian political factions”.

Gerry Adams has also visited Palestine several times, and in 2010 wrote on his blog: "Last year on a visit to the Gaza strip this blog met with senior Hamas leaders, including Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

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"Since then other Shinners have met representatives of Hamas, including Khaled Mashal, the political leader of Hamas…

"The Hamas leadership have told us that they want a peace agreement with justice, stability, security and peace for Palestinians and Israelis…

"There should be a complete cessation of all hostilities and armed actions by all sides and Hamas should be invited to participate in the current negotiations."

Meshal ran Hamas from 1996 to 2017.

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He has called for a day of "jihad" today (Friday), with the Reuters news agency quoting him as saying: "To all scholars who teach jihad... to all who teach and learn, this is a moment for the application (of theories)."

He also said: "[We must] head to the squares and streets of the Arab and Islamic world on Friday.

"Tribes of Jordan, sons of Jordan, brothers and sisters of Jordan... This is a moment of truth and the borders are close to you, you all know your responsibility."

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has also apparently encountered at least one Hamas figure too; a picture exists of him standing in an office next to Dr Aziz Dweik, the Hamas speaker of the Palestinian Authority assembly, along with Sinn Fein MLA Pat Sheehan and some other unnamed individuals.

It was taken in August 2016, though it is not clear where or why, or whether Sir Jeffrey and Dr Dweik spoke.

Hamas was formed in the late 1980s.

Its charter set out an extreme Islamist interpretation of Jewish-Muslim relations.

It expressed a desire not just to re-conquer Israel itself by exclusively armed means (“so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement”) but also casts itself as “the spearhead of the circle of struggle with world Zionism... [and] the fight with the warmongering Jews”.