The possibility of an Iranian role in Saturday’s attack quickly generated speculation. A senior Biden administration official, who could not be identified under White House ground rules, told reporters that the United States did not have anything to indicate that Iran was involved but noted that Hamas would not exist without Iranian support.
A former administration official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be more candid, said Iranian influence over Palestinian militants had grown over the past year in both Gaza and the West Bank. For months, the official said, Tehran has seen an opportunity to stir the pot by encouraging violence between Palestinians and settlers in the West Bank.
“In the past few weeks, as the Israeli-Saudi normalization process has proceeded forward, the rhetoric from Iran has become much harsher,” said Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Traditionally, Iran has relied on its proxies and rejectionist forces to disrupt regional trends it dislikes.”
“Hamas is an independent actor with its own agenda,” he added. “But it has maintained close ties to Iran. Given the scale of this attack, I am not sure it was done without an Iranian foreknowledge — not necessarily consent, although they would readily agree.”
John Hannah, a national security adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney and a senior fellow at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said it seemed “highly probable to me” that the attack had origins in Iran and Lebanon, the base of Hezbollah, with the goal of “derailing the momentum toward peace” between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
