Meanwhile, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group of activists, the Palestinian Yarmouk camp in Damascus has been under heavy attacks over the past week with several massacres taking place.

This report can’t be independently verfied due to media restrictions in Syria.

Relations between Hamas and Syria appeared to be good until anti-government protests erupted throughout Syria in March 2011, triggering a violent crackdown by security forces which activists say has left more than 33,000 people dead.

Hamas initially neither publicly endorsed the Syrian regime’s handling of the uprising nor repudiated it.

According to analysts the Sunni Islamist group was torn between risking the support of its main financial backers – Syria and its ally, Iran  and supporting Syria’s majority Sunni community.

Assad allowed Hamas to relocate to Damascus after it was ousted from Jordan in 1999 after accusing it of using the country as a base for illegal activities.

In Cairo in February, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh publicly condemned Assad’s brutal crackdown of the uprising challenging his rule.

Reports surfaced last year that Hamas is moving its headquarters from Damascus to Egypt. Some reports claimed that the Damascus-based Hamas leadership left Syria after the Syrian government asked the Hamas leaders to leave.

The areas in Syria which serve as camps for people registered as Palestinian refugees have openly sided with the rebels, and Syrian troops have attacked several such camps. Just last week, two Hamas leaders were killed by the Syrian army in a Deraa refugee camp, Maan news agency reported.

In August, the fighting between Assad’s forces and rebels hit Al-Yarmouk, a Damascus neighborhood that serves as an unofficial camp home to almost half a million Palestinian refugees.

Most people in Syria who are considered Palestinian refugees are Syrian-born, but are not considered Syrian, and do not have political rights. Their situation is better than that of refugees in neighboring countries such as Lebanon, where refugees have limited work options and are refused citizenship.