Iran’s furious argument with Hamas over the reason for the devastating October 7 attacks on Israel is a “nail in the coffin” for the terror group, a former Israeli intelligence official told Daily Express US.
Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Wednesday that Hamas’s brutal assault on the world’s only Jewish state was revenge for the 2020 killing of IRGC Quds Force head Qassem Soleimani.
Hamas was quick to deny the claim, arguing it launched its relentless offensive over “the dangers threatening the Al-Aqsa Mosque”, a major Islamic site in the Old City of Jerusalem.
According to Avi Melame, a former Israeli intelligence official, the dispute spells bad news for the terror group.
He told Daily Express US: “Wednesday’s public back and forth between Tehran and Hamas over whether Hamas’s October 7 operation was in response to the 2020 US killing of Qasem Soleimani is another nail in the coffin of Hamas, who is facing an increased criticism within the Arab world over the repercussions to their October attack on Israel.”
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“Mainly that Hamas, who is marketing its war as ‘for the sake of the Palestinian people’, actually attacked Israel at the behest of its masters in Tehran.”
Hamas has argued that “all Palestinian resistance actions” are in retaliation to what it described as the “occupation and its ongoing aggression against our people and the holy places”.
Melame said: “Within this context it’s easy to understand why Hamas was so quick to deny the connection to the US killing of Soleimani as Israel’s response to the attack has led the Arab world to hold Hamas accountable for the greatest devastation witnessed by Palestinians since Israel’s war of independence.”
But much of the Arab world also condemns Israel for the targeting of innocent civilians in the Gaza strip.
In a joint statement to the UN last month in October, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt and Morocco, all called out Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians and violations of international law in the territory.
Hamas has dubbed its October 7 attacks, which killed over 1,000 Israelis, “Operation Al-Aqsa Deluge”.
Prof Jacob Nagel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former acting security advisor, says that Tehran’s fingerprints are all over the terror operation.
He told Daily Express US: “I don’t have any doubt, I see weapons that Hamas used and 99 percent of them came from Iran. 90 percent of their money and funding, and their orders came from Iran.
“It is an Iran-back Hamas assault on Israel, that is exactly what happened.”
Tehran has denied having any direct involvement in the assault, and evidence has yet to surface proving this to be the case.
But according to an October report in the Wall Street Journal, around 500 members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad – a terrorist organisation based in Palestine – were training in Iran ahead of the attack on Israel.
It has also threatened to intervene if Israel’s revenge on Gaza worsens.
Israel declared war on Hamas in October and has launched a punishing bombing campaign on Gaza, killing at least 21,000 Palestinians so far. Iran and Israel have long been bitter enemies, with Tehran refusing to recognise Israel’s right to exist.
The pair have been locked in proxy wars across the Middle East over the last decade, with Israel threatening military action over Iran’s alleged nuclear activity.
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