Iran Admits Providing Palestinian Fighters With ‘Skills’ for Israel Attacks

The Iranian mission to the United Nations has told Newsweek it did not have a direct hand in last weekend’s devastating Hamas infiltration attack, though it admitted that Tehran has given Palestinian fighters the skills needed to launch operations against Israel.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has dismissed reports of Tehran’s involvement in the weekend’s attack, the death toll from which has surpassed 1,000 people in Israel. The operation has prompted a major Israeli military operation in Gaza, which has so far killed more than 950 Palestinians.

The Iranian mission to the UN on Tuesday echoed Khamenei’s comments, while acknowledging that Tehran has given Palestinian armed groups the means to launch attacks against Israel.

“We have supported Palestinian fighters in acquiring fishing skills,” the mission said in a statement. “They independently determine when, where, and how to engage in fishing according to their very own needs and interests.”

Reports of direct Iranian involvement, the mission alleged, are intended to identify “a scapegoat to shift the blame.”

Israel and its supporters, Khamenei said on Tuesday, “have been spreading rumors over the past two or three days, including that Islamic Iran was behind this action. They are wrong.”

Hamas initially claimed direct Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah support for its infiltration attack, later walking back the statement to suggest broad backing from Tehran, but no direct operational assistance. U.S. and Israeli officials have also said there is no evidence that Iran took an active role in what Hamas called operation “Al-Aqsa Flood.”

Hamas has justified the attack as a response to recent Israeli police and military operations in the occupied Palestinian West Bank and in the sacred Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem. But the brutality of its attack into southern Israel has horrified many foreign observers and galvanized international support for Israel’s latest campaign in Gaza. Newsweek has reached out to the group by email to request comment.

Iran’s long-time support for Hamas—as well as the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group also operating from Gaza—is not in doubt. Iranian financial, weapons, training and intelligence support is key for Gazan militant groups. Tehran seeks to wield Palestinian militants as an indirect weapon against Israel, which is one of Iran’s most pressing strategic rivals.

Israel’s former ambassador to the UN Danny Danon told Newsweek on Monday that Tehran’s “fingerprints” are visible on armed groups and their operations across the region. Israel, he and other Israeli politicians have said, is on guard for direct Iranian efforts to further destabilize the country.

The Iranian mission to the UN, though, said that Israel is to blame for the violence again emanating from the blockaded and impoverished Gaza Strip, which since 2007 has been a Hamas stronghold. The enclave is now under “total siege,” in the words of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, ahead of an expected ground offensive.

“The Israeli regime views its survival through creating a so-called perilous foreign adversary, failing to recognize that the true enemy of the regime lies within its occupation, aggression, usurpation, and unspeakable crimes it perpetrates against the Palestinian people,” the mission said.

“For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind,” it added.

Khamenei has lauded the Hamas attack, describing it as an “irreparable failure” for Israel’s military and security apparatus. Tehran’s mission to the UN framed the Hamas success as a historic humiliation for Israel, and a response to decades of Israeli military and intelligence operations.

“The Israeli regime took pride in its espionage and covert operations agency, boasting about numerous operations worldwide targeting Palestinian resistance,” the mission said.

“These operations range from the assassination of individuals linked to the Munich Olympics incident to Operation Entebbe in Uganda, as well as the targeted assassination of Hamas leaders in the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, and conducting cyber and terrorist operations within Iran.”

“The Israeli regime even claimed that it possesses a multitude of influential elements within the Palestinian movements, enabling it to closely monitor even their slightest activities,” the mission added. “On October 7th, the foundation of this claim, often exaggerated and tenuous, crumbled.”

Source » msn.com