Iran helped Hamas plan terror assault since August – WSJ report

Officers of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) helped Hamas to plan its large-scale attack on Saturday over several months, senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday.

Since last August, the IRGC repeatedly met with Hamas and other Iranian-supported proxy terror groups, including Hezbollah, before finally giving the go-ahead last Monday.

The day before, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi spoke with Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad Nakhalah and Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh.

During the surprise attack on Saturday morning, as many as 1,000 Hamas terrorists are believed to have breached the border by land, air and sea, killing over 700 Israelis and wounding more than 2,000.

Battles against the last terrorists holed up in Jewish settlements near the border with the Gaza Strip are still ongoing.

On Sunday, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan indicated that Israel also suspects Iranian involvement.

“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 be coordinated as much as possible with Iran,” he said.

The United States has reportedly not seen concrete evidence of Iranian involvement in the attack.

“We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship," said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Sunday.

Another U.S. official told the WSJ he did not have corroboration of Iranian involvement yet.

Hamas claims to have carried out the attack on its own, while Iran also denies being involved but praised the attack nonetheless.

“This is a Palestinian and Hamas decision,” stated Mahmoud Mirdawi, a senior Hamas official.

On Monday, the Iranian delegation to the UN said in a statement: “The determined steps of the Palestinians constitute a completely legitimate defense against seven decades of occupation and terrible crimes by the illegitimate Zionist regime. We support Palestine without reservation. However, we are not involved in the Palestinian response, which was carried out only by Palestine itself.”