On Dec. 17, 1992, Israel deported 415 Hamas and Islamic Jihad activists from the West Bank and Gaza to Marj al-Zouhour in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. Their deportation would bring about the first direct contact between the Hamas and Hezbollah movements. On June 17, 2013, Hamas urged Hezbollah “to take its forces out of Syria and to keep their weapons directed against the Zionist enemy, especially given that its intervention in Syria has contributed to increasing the sectarian polarization in the region." The statement, issued by Hamas leadership in Cairo, was posted on the Facebook page of Mousa Abu Marzuq, deputy chairman of Hamas' political bureau.
Hamas’ statement was tough on the Party of God, which had assisted it for 20 years with military training and arms and missile smuggling. The Lebanese group had also granted Hamas leaders a secure refuge in the Hezbollah stronghold of al-Dahiya, a southern suburb of Beirut. In addition, Iranian funding and arming of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement allowed it to become the most powerful group in Gaza and the second most influential in the West Bank as well as in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon and Syria.