Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Mikhail Zakharov
[REGNUM] US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington could not currently confirm that Iran was behind the attack on Israel. “We have not yet seen any evidence that Iran directed or was behind this attack, ” Blinken said in an interview with CNN. At the same time, Blinken added that the Hamas group, which carried out the largest attack on Israel in many years on Saturday, would not have gained so much strength if not for the support of Iran in recent years. “Iran and Hamas have a long-standing relationship. In fact, Hamas would not exist in the form it does without the support it has received from Iran over the years,” he said.
Earlier, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Alexander Ben Zvi said that Iran also bears responsibility for the actions of the Palestinian Hamas movement: “Other forces are behind this. For example, Iran, which finances such terrorist organizations. They are always sorry that our relations with various Arab countries are improving."
At the same time, deputies of the Iranian parliament on October 7 expressed their support for the military operation of the Hamas movement against Israel, RIA Novosti reports with reference to the Iranian Tasnim agency. “Parliament members, at the beginning of their evening meeting on the occasion of the unprecedented operation of Palestinian resistance groups, declared their support for this action of the Palestinian Mujahideen,” the report said.
It is no coincidence that the degree of Iran's involvement in the actions of Hamas greatly worries Tel Aviv, Western countries and Arab states against the background of the escalation of the military conflict in Israel. Israel has long accused Iran of threatening its own security, considers it its enemy and has repeatedly threatened Tehran, including with a military strike.
Iran, in turn, which calls Israel “the little Satan,” also does not hide its hostile attitude towards Tel Aviv, actively escalating anti-Israeli rhetoric and supporting military groups attacking Israel like Hezbollah, Iran’s paramilitary proxy unit and Hamas ally.
"UNCONFIRMED INFORMATION"
Yes, on the one hand, the Hamas movement has repeatedly reported that Iran provides it with significant support. Back in 2012, Hamas Politburo member Izzat al-Reshek said that Tehran is the main sponsor of the group's government in the Gaza Strip. In 2021, the British publication The Telegraph confirmed this information, talking about multimillion-dollar Iranian tranches and quoting a representative of the movement in Lebanon that “Iran is the only country that supports the resistance with money and weapons.”
In the same year, the head of the Hamas Politburo, Ismail Hani, admitted that he had received financial and military-technical assistance from Iran. “Our relationship with Iran is strategic and forms a very important pillar of the resistance project,” he said. “It is no secret that Iran provides political, material, military and technical support to the resistance in Palestine.”
There have been more than one occasion when the Israeli military intercepted ships going to the Gaza Strip with weapons destined for local groups. Thus, in 2014, a container ship was detained in the Red Sea , on board of which 40 M-302 missiles, mortar shells and cartridges were found. Then UN experts confirmed the Iranian origin of the cargo.
Moreover, CBS NEWS previously reported, citing the words of Secretary of the Council of Political Expediency of Iran Mohsen Rezaei, that Hamas is capable of firing missiles at Israel because Tehran provided the group with the necessary technology. According to him, this was done so that the Palestinians could create weapons under the blockade and defend themselves.
Tehran then denied accusations of supplying weapons to the Palestinian group, and it does not openly admit this today. Most likely, Iranian support comes down to political and diplomatic methods, but it is possible that unofficially Tehran may also provide military assistance to the Palestinian group, says Boris Dolgov, senior researcher at the Center for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, for Regnum.
“As for specific support, this support is primarily political and, so to speak, moral, political and diplomatic,” notes Dolgov. “But there is support, according to various sources, not officially confirmed, and in terms of providing some weapons and, perhaps, military advisers are involved. This is unconfirmed information."
"TÜRKIYE AND QATAR ARE JEALOUS"
It should be noted that Iran’s influence on Hamas should not be exaggerated. Of course, on the one hand, Iran is ready to cooperate with various forces if they oppose Israel. On the other hand, religious and political contradictions are not so easy to overcome. Hamas belongs to the Sunni branch of Islam, and Iran is a Shiite country. Religious differences between Sunnis and Shiites, as well as difficult relations between Arabs and Persians, limit Iran's influence.
Hamas and Iran, by the way, have already experienced difficulties in relations, in particular, after the outbreak of the civil war in Syria, when Iran supported the government of Bashar al-Assad , and Hamas sided with the militants. “Aid (to Iran - editor's note) has been stopped - both military aid to Hamas and civilian aid to the population of Gaza. Because of this, the movement has difficulties , ” Musa Abu Marzuk, deputy head of the Hamas Politburo, complained then about the cessation of funding from Tehran.
In addition, Turkey and Qatar have considerable influence, financial and ideological, on Hamas. Their relations with Tehran in terms of influence on the Palestinian group can also hardly be called cloudless, explains political scientist Said Gafurov for Regnum news agency . “Hamas is much closer ideologically to Qatar and Turkey,” the expert says. “These countries are jealous and, in general, are trying to keep the Iranians away from Hamas.”
Ankara and Doha patronize the movement, providing it with significant financial assistance, researchers note . It is unlikely that they will voluntarily completely hand over to Iran such an expensive and important instrument of influence on the balance of power in the Middle East region.
"IRAN IS IN NO HURRy"
Tehran's support for Hamas today is more of a media and ideological nature, and Iran is in no hurry to interfere more strongly in what is happening, experts say. This is happening both because of the threat of new sanctions from the West and because of the reluctance to provoke an intensification of the conflict (and the escalation of assistance to Hamas will not go unnoticed), which is fraught with unpredictable consequences for Tehran.
“Tehran will be more active in the ideological sphere, showing the maliciousness of Israel’s policies, the support that Israel is currently receiving from the United States and from European countries too. Everything will be around this. Some more stringent methods of influencing the situation are not yet visible,” notes Andrey Baklanov, a professor at the Department of Foreign Regional Studies at the Faculty of World Economy and International Affairs at the National Research University Higher School of Economics, and advisor to the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, in a conversation with IA Regnum.
The expert notes that Tehran understands the seriousness and inevitability of the results of its possible intervention in the current conflict. “Iran is not interested in aggravating the sanctions pressure, the sanctions regime. Of course, everyone is watching what is happening on this piece of land (in the Gaza Strip - editor's note), and with elements of some kind of supply, logistics or some other, there will be serious claims against Iran, says Baklanov. “Iran can’t afford this; it will have serious consequences for it.”
On the other hand, Boris Dolgov notes, much will depend on the development of the current escalation of the conflict in the Gaza Strip. In his opinion, in the current scenario, Tehran intends to continue its usual policy, and its assistance will be mainly diplomatic, political and humanitarian. “But, perhaps, if Israel’s actions against Hamas develop more harshly, the conflict will become more severe, and support, so to speak, by sending weapons, sending advisers, is also possible. But it is unlikely that Iran or any Arab countries will directly intervene militarily ,” the expert sums up.
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