Iran has denied “false allegations” that it assisted the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in its huge assault on Israel.
“The accusations linked to an Iranian role… are based on political reasons,” foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani told reporters.
Kanani stated that the Islamic Republic of Iran did not and does not intervene “in the decision-making of other countries, including Palestine.”
Iran, which does not recognize Israel and has made Palestinian support a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was among the first to applaud Hamas’s catastrophic surprise attack on Saturday.
Kanani further stated that the Palestinians had “the necessary capacity and will to defend their nation and recover their rights” without any help.
“Talking about an Iranian role aims at turning public opinion away from the facts and justifying the potential future actions” of Israel, the spokesman added.
The Wall Street Journal reported that “Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday,” citing senior members of Hamas and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.
