Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar looks on as Palestinian Hamas supporters take part in an anti-Israel rally over tension in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, in Gaza City, Oct. 1, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar thanked the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for his group’s support in the conflict with Israel, Hezbollah said on Friday, in the first reported message since Sinwar became Hamas’s overall leader in August.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah has been waging attacks on Israel for nearly a year in a conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border that has been taking place in parallel to the Gaza war. Hezbollah says its attacks aim to support the Palestinians.

“Your blessed actions have expressed your solidarity on the fronts of the Axis of Resistance, supporting and engaging in the battle,” Sinwar told Nasrallah, according to Hezbollah‘s al-Manar broadcaster.

Sinwar has not appeared in public since the Oct. 7 attacks, and is widely thought to be running the war from tunnels beneath Gaza. It was the second time this week he is reported to have sent a letter. Hamas said on Tuesday he had sent one congratulating Algerian President Abdulmadjid Tebboune on his re-election.

Hezbollah is the most powerful faction in an alliance of Iran-backed groups known as the Axis of Resistance, which have also entered the fray with attacks from Yemen and Iraq in support of Hamas during the Gaza war.

Both Hamas and Hezbollah are internationally designated terrorist groups which receive funding, weapons, and training from Iran.

Hezbollah has pummeled northern Israeli communities almost daily with barrages of drones, rockets, and missiles from southern Lebanon, where it wields significant political and military influence, since the start of the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas in October.

About 80,000 Israelis have been forced to evacuate Israel’s north during that time due to the unrelenting attacks. Most of them have spent the past 11 months living displaced in hotels in other areas of he country.

Nonetheless, in the early days of the Gaza conflict, former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal hinted at frustration over the scale of Hezbollah‘s intervention, thanking the group but saying “the battle requires more.”

Over the last year, Israel has killed around 500 Hezbollah fighters, including its top military commander Fuad Shukr. The toll is greater than Hezbollah‘s losses in its 2006 war with Israel. Hezbollah has said it had no advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 attack, which Sinwar masterminded.

Sinwar also thanked Nasrallah for a letter he sent expressing condolences for the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the former Hamas leader killed in Tehran in July in an assassination widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

The hostilities across the Lebanese-Israeli border have forced tens of thousands of people to leave both sides of the frontier. The risk of escalation has loomed large.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that Israeli forces are near to fulfilling their mission in Gaza and their focus will turn to the Lebanon border.

Israeli leaders have said they would prefer to resolve the conflict through an agreement that would push Hezbollah away from the border. Hezbollah has said that it will continue fighting as long as the Gaza war continues.