Iran met and advised senior Hamas officials about their strategy for Saturday’s surprise terrorist invasion of Israel, giving them the go-ahead for the large-scale assault at a meeting in Beirut, Lebanon last week.
According to The Wall Street Journal, senior members of the terror groups Hamas and Hezbollah said security officers with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked on operational plans since August for launching attacks on Israel from air, land, and by sea.
Over the course of several meetings in Beirut, the plans were adjusted by Iran’s officers and delegates from Hamas and three other Iran-backed terrorist groups, the outlet reported.
The information given by the Hamas and Hezbollah officials was corroborated by a European official, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Saturday’s unprovoked aggression by Hamas was the most serious incursion of Israel’s border in the last 50 years. The surprise attack came on the Jewish holy day of Shemini Atzeret and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War.
The Israeli government declared war on Sunday, calling up 300,000 reservists.
As CBN News has reported, since Hamas’ invasion on Saturday, more than 4,000 rockets have been fired into Israel, more than 700 Israelis murdered, almost 3,000 injured, many seriously— with roughly 100 kidnapped and taken into captivity in Gaza. The U.S. State Department also said Monday that at least nine U.S. citizens were killed over the weekend.
Meanwhile, Biden administration officials said they have no information directly linking Iran to the planning of Saturday’s deadly terrorist attacks on Israel.
But they admitted there’s no denying Iran’s history of aiding Hamas, the unnamed officials told CNN on Monday.
“Of course, Iran is in the picture,” one U.S. official told the outlet. “They’ve provided support for years to Hamas and Hezbollah.”
“In this specific instance, we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday. On NBC’s “Meet the Press”, Blinken added, “That’s something we’re looking at very carefully, and we’ve got to see where the facts lead.”
Iran has denied any involvement in Hamas’ attacks on Israel. A spokesman for Iran’s U.N. delegation said his country was not involved.
However, Hamas officials have given differing statements on the radical Islamic regime’s involvement. A senior Hamas official also denied that Iran supported or sanctioned the operation, according to NBC News. Ali Baraka, the head of Hamas’ National Relations Abroad, told the outlet, “It was a surprise to everyone, including Iran.”
But Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas government spokesman, told the BBC Sunday that the group had direct backing for the multi-front attack on Israel from Iran.
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former CIA officer and an expert in counterintelligence in the Middle East, wrote in a post on X Sunday that it will be critical for Israeli intelligence to determine “the difference between ‘directing’ the attack and giving the actual green vs ‘coordinating’ may be the difference between war with Iran or not.”
In a follow-up post on Monday, Polymeropoulos reminded his followers, “As we split hairs. The US went to war in Afghanistan post 9/11-against the Taliban-for a much lower level of support they provided to Al-Qa’ida (safe haven essentially) than what Iran provides to Hamas (money, training, logistics, etc).”
As CBN News reported Monday, an Israeli Defense Force (IDF) official said although Israeli forces have regained control of all Gaza border towns, it’s possible that some Hamas terrorists are still lurking inside the country.
The IDF deployed four divisions to the south to expel Hamas operatives from Israeli soil. Israeli warplanes are carrying out widespread strikes on Hamas targets and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Monday ordered a “complete closure” of the Gaza Strip.
Meanwhile, Hamas continues to rain down rockets on communities in south and central Israel.
In other developments, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday he had ordered the Ford carrier strike group to sail to the Eastern Mediterranean to be ready to assist Israel. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s newest and most advanced aircraft carrier, and its approximately 5,000 sailors and deck of warplanes will be accompanied by cruisers and destroyers in a show of force that is meant to be ready to respond to anything, from possibly interdicting additional weapons from reaching Hamas and conducting surveillance.
In addition, the Biden administration “will be rapidly providing the Israel Defense Forces with additional equipment and resources, including munitions. The first security assistance will begin moving today and arriving in the coming days,” Austin said.
The gruesome massacre of hundreds of Israeli civilians, women, and children comes right after the U.S. just paid a $6 billion ransom payment to Iran to free 5 U.S. hostages.
The Biden administration issued a blanket waiver to allow the transfer of $6 billion in frozen Iranian oil funds without fear of U.S. sanctions.
Even though the agreement between the two countries stipulates that the funds be limited to the purchase of humanitarian goods like food or medicine, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi told NBC News on Sept. 12 that his government will decide how it will spend the $6 billion adding the money will be spent “wherever we need it.”
Meanwhile, Raisi spoke by phone with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Sunday.
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In response to Saturday’s terrorist invasion of Israel, the European Union announced Monday that it was “immediately” suspending hundreds of millions of euros in aid for Palestinian authorities because of what an EU commissioner called the “scale of terror and brutality” during the attacks on Israel by Hamas.
EU Commissioner Oliver Varhelyi said that “as the biggest donor of the Palestinians, the European Commission is putting its full development portfolio under review,” which he said amounted to 691 million euros ($730 million).
Varhelyi said that the measures include that “all payments (be) immediately suspended. All projects put under review. All new budget proposals … postponed until further notice.”
“There can be no business as usual,” he said.
Germany and Austria also said they were suspending similar aid.
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