Security officials from Iran helped Hamas plan Saturday’s surprise attack on Israel, the Wall Street Journal said in a report. The green light for the attacks were given on Monday during a meeting held in Lebanon’s capital Beirut, the report further added, citing senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed terrorist group.
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The Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) worked with Hamas since August to plan the air, land and sea incursions, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said, citing people familiar with the developments.
The IRGC and four Iran-backed terrorist groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah and a political faction from Lebanon attended the meeting.
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The US has refrained from commenting directly on Iran’s involvement in the deadliest attack on Israel since the 1973 Yom Kippur War or the Fourth Arab-Israeli War.
“We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship. We don’t have any information at this time to corroborate this account,” Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State said.
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The WSJ report said that a European official and an adviser to the Syrian government gave the same account of Iran’s involvement in the lead-up to the attack like the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders.
Hamas publicly claims this is a decision taken by the armed group. “This is a Palestinian and Hamas decision,” Mahmoud Mirdawi, a senior Hamas official, said.
Iranian officials at the United Nations said Iran supports Gaza’s actions but did not direct them.
“The decisions made by the Palestinian resistance are fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people. We are not involved in Palestine’s response, as it is taken solely by Palestine itself,” the Iranian official said.
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Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi talked to Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and the WSJ report also said that Tehran is now devoting the IRGC’s foreign resources toward coordinating, financing and arming militias antagonistic to Israel, which also includes Hamas and Hezbollah.
However, the people familiar with the developments told the news outlet that Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist leaders have met with the Iranian Quds Force leaders at least biweekly in Lebanon since August.
The meetings were held under the leadership of Ismail Qaani, the leader of the IRGC’s international military arm, the Quds Force.
The other attendees of these meetings were Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, Islamic Jihad leader al-Nakhalah, and Saleh al-Arouri, Hamas’s military chief, the leaders of the terror group said.
They further added that Iranian foreign minister Amir-Abdollahian attended at least two of the meetings.
The WSJ report also said that the Iranian IRGC wants to create a “multi-front threat” and strangle Israel from all sides. Hamas and Hezbollah members and Iranian officials speaking to the WSJ said that Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine would operate from the North and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank.
Israel previously has warned that if they find Iranian leadership is found responsible for killing Israelis it will strike Iran’s leadership.
This will also bring a new age of unrest in West Asia and the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, who were eyeing a normalisation of ties between Israel and Arab nations, will now have to wait before signing any deal.
The total tally of dead from the Israel-Hamas conflict rose to above 1,100 within 48 hours since the onset of the hostilities, with thousand others injured.
“We know that there were meetings in Syria and in Lebanon with other leaders of the terror armies that surround Israel so obviously it’s easy to understand that they tried to coordinate. The proxies of Iran in our region, they tried to coordinate as much as possible with Iran,” Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, said Sunday.