Prominent Italian Pro-Hamas Activist Meets With Italian MPs

On 23 and 24 Sep­tem­ber 2021, Mohamed Han­noun, leader of the Asso­ci­azione dei Palestineisi in Italia, met with Ital­ian Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment in Rome to dis­cuss mat­ters relat­ed to Israel and the human­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion in the Mid­dle East. Accord­ing to an arti­cle in pro-Pales­tin­ian media:

On Thurs­day and Fri­day 23–24 / 09/2021, the pres­i­dent of the API, Dr. Muham­mad Han­noun, accom­pa­nied by the head of Pub­lic Rela­tions of the asso­ci­a­tion, Sulaiman Hijazi, held sev­er­al meet­ings at the Ital­ian Par­lia­ment with some par­lia­men­tar­i­ans affil­i­at­ed with Ital­ian par­ties, such as the Five Star Move­ment, the PD, right-wing and oppo­si­tion par­ties. Han­noun dis­cussed with par­lia­men­tar­i­ans the lat­est devel­op­ments in the Pales­tin­ian are­na, the Israeli attacks on the city of Jerusalem and the reper­cus­sions of the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, espe­cial­ly after the lat­est Israeli offen­sive. [Trans­lat­ed from Ital­ian orig­i­nal using Google.]

Read the rest here.

The arti­cle fur­thers reports dur­ing these meet­ings Han­noun also high­light­ed the human­i­tar­i­an con­di­tion of Pales­tin­ian refugees in Lebanon fol­low­ing the eco­nom­ic and social cri­sis in that coun­try. On 25 Sep­tem­ber 2021, for­mer Five Star Move­ment MP Yana Chiara Ehm pub­lished a Face­book post say­ing she thanked Hanoun and Hijazi for the fruit­ful debate, not­ing that it end­ed with a clear call to “orga­nize a human­i­tar­i­an mis­sion in Lebanon.” Anoth­er Five Star Move­ment MP, Emanuela Cor­da, also pub­lished a Face­book post in which she vowed to do her part as an MP to relieve the human­i­tar­i­an sit­u­a­tion in the Gaza Strip. The Five Star Move­ment is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered as pop­ulist/right-wing but is dif­fi­cult to classify.

Mohamed Han­noun, a promi­nent Ital­ian pro-Pales­tin­ian activist, is known to have been Pres­i­dent of the Asso­ci­azione Benefi­ca Di Sol­i­da­ri­eta’ Con Il Popo­lo Palesti­nese (ABSPP), the Ital­ian mem­ber of the Union of Good (UOG), a world­wide coali­tion of Mus­lim Broth­er­hood-relat­ed char­i­ties des­ig­nat­ed by the US for Hamas fund-rais­ing activities.

Han­noun has also act­ed as rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Euro­pean Cam­paign to End the Siege On Gaza (ECESG), an umbrel­la of non-gov­ern­men­tal pro-Pales­tin­ian orga­ni­za­tions across Europe. The ECESG Exec­u­tive Direc­tor was also an offi­cer of the Lon­don-based Pales­tin­ian Return Cen­tre (PRC), des­ig­nat­ed by the Israeli gov­ern­ment and described as “Hamas’s orga­ni­za­tion­al branch in Europe.” The ECESG was among the par­tic­i­pants in a June 2010 “Gaza Flotil­la” involved in a vio­lent alter­ca­tion with Israel naval forces.

The Hamas char­ter says that it is “one of the wings of the Mus­lim Broth­ers in Pales­tine,” and a Hamas jour­nal­ist has acknowl­edged the role that the “inter­na­tion­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood” has played in pro­vid­ing funds for the pur­chase of weapons. Hamas is known to be sup­port­ed finan­cial­ly and polit­i­cal­ly by the GMB.