Did Iran help Hamas plan the deadly attack on Israel?

West Asia continues to be on the boil as the conflict between Israel and Palestine escalates after Hamas’ stealth attack, which left at least 9000 people dead in the country. The war is just beginning, Tel Aviv warns, as the Israeli military pounds the Gaza Strip amid an order of a “total siege”. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to go against Hamas with a force “like never before” (Almost 690 have been killed in Gaza). Yet questions abound about how Hamas, a weaker enemy, hoodwinked Israel’s sophisticated security and intelligence. Did it get external help? And was Iran involved? Iran is Israel’s arch-enemy and has long backed the Palestinian terrorist group. In the aftermath of the Hamas assault, Iran presdient Ebrahim Raisi that his country supported the Palestinians’ right to self-defence and warned Israel must be held accountable for endangering the region. “Iran supports the legitimate defence of the Palestinian nation,” Raisi said, quoted by state television. But backing Palestine is one thing and plotting the attack is another and it comes with grave geopolitical implications.

Did Iran help Hamas plan the attack on Israel? A report in The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) said that Iran helped plot the attack on Israel several weeks ago. Security officials from Iran helped plan the surprise assault and gave Hamas a green signal to go ahead with it at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, the newspaper reports quoting members of the Palestinian militant group, and Hezbollah, another terrorist organisation backed by Iran. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of the Iranian armed forces, reportedly worked wit h Hamas since August to devise the attack. Several meetings were held in Beirut between the Iranian officials and representatives of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iran-backed militant groups to refine the operation, WSJ reports. [caption id=“attachment_13227672” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Lebanese soldiers stand on a hill that overlooks the Israeli town of Metula, background, as a man waves the Palestinian and Hezbollah flags, at the Lebanese side of the Lebanese-Israeli border in the southern village of Kfar Kila, Lebanon on 9 October. Israeli troops shot and killed several gunmen who crossed into the country from Lebanon, the Israeli Defense Forces said without specifying the number of people killed nor their alleged affiliation. AP[/caption] On Sunday, a Hamas spokesperson told the BBC that it had received support from Iran and other unnamed sources. However, another senior Hamas official denied Iran’s role. Emphasising that Tehran was not given a heads-up before the attack was launched, he told NBC News in an interview, “It was a surprise to everyone, including Iran.” Don’t miss: Our coverage from Tel Aviv on the Israel-Hamas war What Iran has said about its role in the attack? Iran on Monday rejected unfounded allegations that it had a role to play in the assault. “The accusations linked to an Iranian role… are based on political reasons,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told the media, according to a report in The Times of Israel. The Islamic Republic, he said, does not intervene “in the decision-making of other countries, including Palestine.” [caption id=“attachment_13227712” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Iran and Israel are arch-enemies. A report in WSJ says that Tehran had a role to play in the attack on Israel. File photo/AP[/caption] A spokesperson of Iran’s mission to the United Nations was quoted by WSJ as saying that while Iran supported Hamas it did not direct it. “The decisions made by the Palestinian resistance are fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people,” the spokesman told the publication. “We are not involved in Palestine’s response, as it is taken solely by Palestine itself.” What is Israel saying? The Israeli military said that there was no concrete evidence of Iranian involvement in the assault. “Iran is a major player but we can’t yet say if it was involved in the planning or training,” said R Adm Daniel Hagari, a spokesperson for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) on Monday. Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, said on Sunday that Hamas was acting as a proxy for Iranian interests, including Tehran’s desire to derail a possible peace accord between Saudi Arabia and Israel. What is the US saying? Iran is complicit even though the United States has no intelligence or evidence that points to Iran’s direct participation in attacks in Israel by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, a White House spokesperson said on Monday, according to a Reuters report. “Iran has long supported Hamas and other terrorist networks throughout the region with resources capabilities training,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said on MSNBC. “And so in that regard, clearly, Iran is complicit here, but in terms of specific evidence on this, these sorts of attacks, no, we don’t have anything,” he clarified. [caption id=“attachment_13227722” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Israelis inspect the rubble of a building a day after it was hit by a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip, in Tel Aviv, on 8 October. AP[/caption] However, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted earlier, “Iran and Hamas have a long relationship. Hamas wouldn’t be Hamas without the support it’s had for many years from Iran.” WSJ says in its report, “A direct Iranian role would take Tehran’s long-running conflict with Israel out of the shadows, raising the risk of broader conflict in the Middle East. Senior Israeli security officials have pledged to strike at Iran’s leadership if Tehran is found responsible for killing Israelis.”

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What is in it for Iran? In the past decade, there have been several developments in West Asia to normalise ties between the Arab nations and Israel. The Abraham Accords, brokered by the US, led to the UAE becoming the third country to formalise ties with Israel after Egypt (1979) and Jordan (1994). The Emirates and Tel Aviv signed a trade deal in May last year. In 2020, Saudi Arabia, which never recognised Israel, signed a normalisation deal with it, which came into effect the next year. However, this has not gone down well with Iran. Only a few days ago, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei said that Israel “will be eradicated by the hands of the Palestinian people and the resistance forces throughout the region”, as he cautioned Muslim nations against attempting to normalise ties with Israel. Now the attack has led to increased speculation that Hamas and Iran were unnerved by the progress of the normalisation process between Israel and Saudi Arabia. [caption id=“attachment_13227752” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] An Iranian woman holds a Palestinian flag during a gathering in support of Palestinians, in Tehran. Reuters[/caption] The deal with Saudi Arabia, which is the most influential of the Sunni nations, meant that the Muslim world’s opposition to Israel would dwindle, leading to their isolation. Riyadh’s greatest worry today is a nuclear-armed Iran, according to commentary in Politico. Part of the normalisation deal is that Saudi Arabia would obtain security guarantees from the United States as well as assistance to develop a civilian nuclear programme. “Iranians egged on Hamas to carry out this attack because they wanted to draw us into a battle that would sidetrack us from what we should be focusing on — Iran’s nuclear project. Sadly, they have succeeded,’’ former Israeli Deputy National Security Advisor Eran Lerman was quoted as saying in the Politico piece titled “Iran is the only one likely to benefit from Hamas’ attack on Israel”. After the attack, Saudi Arabia has come out in support of Palestine. Israel’s unforgiving response to the strike might leave the kingdom and other Arab nations dismayed. The Hamas attack, experts say, has dealt a heavy blow towards progress on normalisation and could derail it. And that would be a win for Iran. With inputs from agencies