Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Wednesday the October attacks on Israel by Tehran-backed Hamas militants were in part a retaliation of the US killing in 2020 of a top Iranian commander.
Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the death of about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on official figures.
Israel air strike kills high-ranking Iranian general in Syria
Israel air strike kills high-ranking Iranian general in Syria
Israel responded with a withering offensive that has killed more than 21,100 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
“Undoubtedly, part of the great historic victory … is due to the efforts of General Qassem Soleimani,” Ramezan Sharif, spokesman for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said of the Hamas attacks.
“One can consider the (Hamas) operation’s success as part of the resistance’s revenge against his cowardly assassination,” Sharif was quoted by as saying Fars news agency.
He said that “the 70-year oppression, the occupation, insults to the al-Aqsa mosque, and the siege and massacre of the defenceless Palestinians” were also among the motives for the Hamas attack.
US retaliates in Iraq with strikes on 3 sites used by Iran-backed militias
US retaliates in Iraq with strikes on 3 sites used by Iran-backed militias
Sharif earlier told a news conference in Tehran that the Hamas attacks on October 7 were among “acts of revenge” for Soleimani’s killing which was carried out “by the Americans and with the support of the Zionists (Israel).”
Those remarks, which Sharif later said were “misunderstood”, drew a rare rebuke from Hamas which said “there is no truth” in them.
“We have announced on several occasions the motivations and reasons behind Operation al-Aqsa Flood, namely the dangers facing al-Aqsa mosque,” said Hamas in a statement.
An Israeli strike on Syria’s capital on Monday targeted Razi Moussavi, the most senior commander in the Quds Force to be killed outside Iran since Soleimani in 2020.
The al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem is a site holy to both Muslims and Jews, who refer to it as the Temple Mount.
In recent years nationalist Jews have made multiple visits to the compound, sparking anger among Palestinians who see this as a provocation.