by Khaled Ahmed
The precise details of Iran’s direct role in authorising the attack are gradually coming to light, with officials involved in the investigation insisting that both Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah (a terrorist organization Iran controls) were involved in the planning of the Hamas terrorist operation.
This is hardly surprising given the estimated $100 million a year Tehran gives Hamas to help develop its terrorist infrastructure, part of the £13.1 billion Iran has spent on developing its terrorist network throughout the Middle East during the past decade, from supporting Houthi rebels in Yemen to Shia militias in Iraq.
The true extent of Iran’s military support for Hamas was recently laid bare by the movement’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, when he revealed that funds received from Tehran had helped to fund the development of missile and defence systems designed and built in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
The significance of Iran’s involvement with Hamas’s terrorist activity was also evident at the weekend, when Haniyeh met with Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, in Qatar, a country that also has a long history of funding Hamas.
The extent of Iran’s meddling in the current war in the Middle East should certainly serve as a wake-up call to the US and its European allies about the danger Iran poses not just to the region, but the wider world.
With the Saudi negotiations now on hold, the US and its allies should accept the folly of trying to maintain a diplomatic dialogue with Tehran in the hope that the Iranian regime may be persuaded to sign up to a new nuclear deal.
As Iran’s open support for Hamas has demonstrated, the ayatollahs have no interest in reaching a peaceful accommodation with the West.
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