Report: Iran helped plot Hamas attack, gave final go-ahead last Monday in Beirut
Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’ Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, the Wall Street Journal quoted “senior Hamas and Hezbollah members” as saying.
Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land and sea incursions -- the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, the sources told WSJ.
“Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah,” the sources said.
Iran on Monday rejected as unfounded allegations it had a role in the massive assault by Hamas.
"The accusations linked to an Iranian role... are based on political reasons," foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told reporters, adding that Palestinians had "the necessary capacity and will to defend their nation and recover their rights" without any help from Tehran.
U.S. officials meanwhile say they haven’t seen evidence of Tehran’s involvement. In an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “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,” said a U.S. official of the alleged meetings.
A European official and an adviser to the Syrian government, however, gave the same account of Iran’s involvement in the lead-up to the attack.
Asked about the purported meetings, Mahmoud Mirdawi, a senior Hamas official, said the group planned the attacks on its own. “This is a Palestinian and Hamas decision,” he said.
“The strike was intended to hit Israel while it appeared distracted by internal political divisions over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. It was also aimed at disrupting accelerating U.S.-brokered talks to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel that Iran saw as threatening,” the alleged senior Hamas and Hezbollah members told WSJ.
Building on peace deals with Egypt and Jordan, expanding Israeli ties with Gulf Arab states could create a chain of American allies linking three key choke points of global trade -- the Suez Canal, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Bab Al Mandeb -- connecting the
Red Sea to the Arabian Sea, said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
“That’s very bad news for Iran,” Ibish said. “If they could do this, the strategic map changes dramatically to Iran’s detriment.”
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse
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