An Unholy Alliance: Hamas, Hezbollah, and HTS’s Fraught Calculus

The Middle East has never lacked for intrigue, shifting alliances, and the sort of Byzantine plotting that would make Machiavelli blush. Into this tangled web enters the latest drama: Hamas and Hezbollah’s tentative overtures to Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). On the surface, these overtures are cloaked in the language of unity against Israel, but scratch a little deeper, and it’s plain to see they are less about solidarity and more about desperation. For Hamas, backed into a corner after Qatar distanced itself and its leaders relocated to Turkey, and Hezbollah, facing HTS’s declared hostility toward all things Shia, the stakes have never been higher.

Hamas and Hezbollah, those two stalwarts of the so-called “resistance,” have long shared a relationship of convenience. Hezbollah, with its Iranian backing and arsenal, has provided training and resources to Hamas, seeing its operations in Gaza as a handy thorn in Israel’s side. Hamas, for its part, has accepted this support with open arms, despite the ideological chasm between Sunni Islamism and Shia theocracy.

But the cracks have always been there, not least when Hamas broke with the Assad regime during the Syrian civil war. In a rare show of principle—or pragmatism—it chose solidarity with Syria’s Sunni rebels over its benefactors in Damascus and Tehran. Iran, predictably miffed, froze support temporarily, though this frosty period has since thawed as Hamas found itself with dwindling options.

Now comes HTS, a Sunni jihadist group that has seized control of much of northern Syria. HTS, unlike the pliable Hamas, makes no secret of its disdain for Iran, Hezbollah, and their ilk. Indeed, it has openly declared its intention to rid the region of all Shia influences. In short, it loathes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Hezbollah just as much as it loathes Assad.

For Hamas, this creates a rather awkward predicament. Aligning with HTS might burn bridges with Iran and Hezbollah, whose financial and logistical support it still desperately needs. Yet rejecting HTS outright risks losing credibility as a champion of the Sunni cause. It is, to put it mildly, an impossible tightrope to walk.

HTS’s ambitions do not stop at Syria. Its rhetoric against Iranian proxies could spill over into action in Iraq and Yemen, turning these regions into yet more arenas of conflict. Hezbollah, already stretched thin defending its position in Lebanon and supporting Assad in Syria, might find itself battling HTS directly.

At the centre of this mess lies the glaring hypocrisy of Hamas. Here is a group that has defined itself not by its efforts to build a Palestinian state but by its unrelenting obsession with Israel. Its alliances, whether with Iran or its flirtations with HTS, are driven less by a coherent strategy and more by a cynical calculation of survival.

Hamas’s reliance on anti-Israel rhetoric has masked its lack of a vision for Palestinian statehood. The group exists in a perpetual state of conflict, tethered to external powers whose agendas often contradict its own. Its attempt to reconcile with HTS—a group that views Hezbollah, Hamas’s closest ally, as an enemy—exposes the fragility of its position and its failure to chart a meaningful path forward.

The current dynamic is a precarious powder keg. Should HTS’s anti-Shia rhetoric turn into direct action, Hezbollah could find itself fighting on multiple fronts. This would stretch its resources thin, destabilize its grip on Lebanon, and weaken Iran’s influence in the region.

For Hamas, the stakes are no less dire. Closer alignment with HTS risks alienating its Iranian patrons, while sticking with Hezbollah could provoke HTS’s wrath. Either way, Hamas is caught in a lose-lose scenario, a reflection of its deepening irrelevance in a rapidly changing Middle East.

For Israel, this fractured landscape offers both challenges and opportunities. The hostility between HTS and Iranian proxies creates exploitable divisions, weakening the operational cohesion of its enemies. Yet, the rise of HTS, with its ability to attract disaffected Sunni fighters and its territorial ambitions, poses a long-term threat that Israel cannot ignore.

The chaos demands vigilance. Exploiting the cracks between Hamas, Hezbollah, and HTS requires careful strategy and a keen understanding of the region’s shifting alliances. At the same time, Israel must prepare for the eventual recalibration of these forces, as their mutual animosities will not prevent them from reuniting against a common adversary when it suits them.

What we are witnessing is a Middle Eastern farce, a tragicomedy of desperation and contradiction. Hamas, a group that has built its brand on resistance to Israel, now finds itself torn between its Iranian sponsors and a Sunni jihadist faction that loathes everything Iran represents. Hezbollah, once a symbol of Shia militancy, now faces the unenviable task of defending itself against HTS while maintaining its overstretched operations in Syria and Lebanon.

In the end, the overtures to HTS reveal the fragile nature of these alliances and the hollowness of their rhetoric. For Hamas, whose raison d’être is defined more by its hatred of Israel than by any constructive vision, the future is bleak. Its inability to navigate the region’s complexities has left it floundering, a relic of a bygone era of resistance politics.

As the Middle East’s kaleidoscope of allegiances continues to shift, one thing remains certain: the alliances of today are unlikely to endure, but their consequences will echo for years to come. For Israel, the challenge is to navigate this treacherous terrain with both caution and resolve, knowing that in the ever-changing theatre of Middle Eastern geopolitics, the only certainty is uncertainty.