A group representing an anti-Zionist, ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect have paid a brief visit to the Gaza Strip to express their support for Hamas.

The trip was the first by members of the Neturei Karta sect since Hamas – whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel – seized control of the tiny coastal territory two years ago.

The Orthodox group's opposition to Zionism comes from the belief that Jews should not have their own state until the coming of the Messiah and has seen them embrace Israel's enemies – including President Ahmadinejad of Iran, whom Neturei Karta members famously hugged at a Holocaust denial conference in December 2006.

Four sect representatives from the US sat down with Ismail Haniya, the Hamas Prime Minister, yesterday after arriving in Gaza from Egypt on Wednesday night in a group of around 200 pro-Palestinian activists including the British MP George Galloway.

"We feel your suffering, we cry your cry," one of the group, Rabbi Yisroel Weiss, said as they arrived in Gaza.

"It is your land, it is occupied, illegitimately and unjustly by people who stole it, kidnapped the name of Judaism and our identity."

Hamas has killed more than 250 Israelis in suicide bombings and is considered a terrorist group by Israel, the United States and European Union.

During yesterday's meeting, according to an account on a Hamas website, Mr Haniya told the group that he held no grudge against Jews, but against the state of Israel itself.

Neturei Karta, Aramaic for "Guardians of the City," was founded some 70 years ago in Jerusalem by Jews who opposed the drive to establish the state of Israel. Estimates of the group's size range from a few hundred to a few thousand.

Representatives of the sect had previously visited Gaza when it was ruled by Fatah, Hamas's more secular rival. A member of the group acted as Yassir Arafat's adviser on Jewish affairs, and a delegation travelled to Paris in 2004 to pray for the Palestinian leader's health as he lay dying in a hospital.

Months later, another group participated in a conference in Lebanon with Hamas and Hezbollah militants.

Times Recommends

• Times Charity Appeal: SolarAid
• Is it Black Monday all over again for Dubai?
• Behind the scenes at the biggest deal