On Monday, Deputy National Security Adviser Jonathan Finer would not confirm a Wall Street Journal report that Iran was directly involved with the barbaric attack launched against Israel by Hamas. “[W]e’re looking into it,” he said, “but we do not have the ability to corroborate it at this time.”
A Hamas official confirmed that the organization received support from Iran for the attack and the Wall Street Journal report gave more details and confirmed the report with multiple officials.
The publication said that officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been working with Hamas and other Islamic terrorists in planning the attacks, which included firing thousands of rockets and invading Israel by land, sea, and air. “Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said,” the report stated.
Finer — who served as a foreign and national correspondent at The Washington Post before joining the Obama administration in 2009, where he rose to become Senior Advisor to Deputy National Security Advisor Antony Blinken, then Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Planning at the U.S. Department of State — spoke with ABC’s “Good Morning America” host George Stephanopoulos, who asked, “Can you confirm that report? Can you now confirm that Iran was behind this?”
“So taking a step back, I think what we can be quite clear about is that Iran is broadly complicit in these attacks for having supported Hamas going back decades, for having provided financial support, for having provided training, for having provided weapons to Hamas,” Finer admitted. He continued, “What we don’t have is direct information that shows Iranian involvement in ordering or planning the attacks that took place over the last couple of days. It’s something that we’re going to keep looking at closely. By the way, this is something that the Israeli government has said as well; broad complicity but no evidence of direct support although it’s something we are going to continue to watch.”
“So The Wall Street Journal report is not correct or you cannot confirm it?” Stephanopoulos pressed.
“What I can tell you is we have no direct information to confirm that report. We’ve obviously seen it; we’re looking into it, but we do not have the ability to corroborate it at this time,” Finer replied.
On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack, but there is certainly a long relationship.”
Lina Khatib, director of the SOAS Middle East Institute at the University of London, said: “An attack of such scope could only have happened after months of planning and would not have happened without coordination with Iran.”
“Hamas, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, does not singlehandedly make decisions to engage in war without prior explicit agreement from Iran,” Khatib added.
Related:
Hamas Confirms It Received Support From Iran For Terror Attacks On Israel
Ryan Saavedra and Tim Pearce contributed to this article.