Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted on Tuesday that his government was not involved in Hamas’ attack on Israel.
However, during his televised speech the Ayatollah did laud what he called Israel’s “irreparable” military and intelligence defeat, saying that the strike by Hamas “has destroyed some critical structures [in Israel] which will not be repaired easily….The Zionist regime’s own actions are to blame for this disaster.”
At least 900 people have died in Israel since Saturday’s attack, after which Israel declared war on Hamas, and another 765 people have died in Gaza where some 4,000 are also injured.
Israel has long accused Iran’s clerical rulers of stoking violence by supplying arms to Hamas. On Monday, U.S. officials said Iran was complicit in Hamas’ assault on Israel, but both U.S. and Israeli officials conceded they’re still seeking a smoking gun that would link Iran to direct involvement in Hamas’ attack.
Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has insisted that the unfreezing of Iranian funds last month as part of a prisoner swap for five wrongfully detained Americans last month was not funneled from Iran to Hamas.
In fact, that unfrozen $6 billion was moved to a bank in Doha, where authorities in Qatar would oversee its use strictly for humanitarian purposes, as a stipulation of of the agreement.
“So people are either misinformed or they’re misinforming. And either way, it’s wrong,” Blinken said on Sunday.
On Monday evening, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called for unity in his nation’s government and declared that “at the end of the war, all our enemies will know it was a terrible mistake to attack Israel.”
In his televised address Tuesday, the Ayatollah counter-declared that if Israel sought to portray itself as the victim in order to escalate the tensions, “this is a misguided calculation…It will result in even greater disaster.”
