(JNS) The Oct. 7 massacre in southwestern Israel was a response to the 2020 killing of Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Iranian Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani by the United States, Tehran claimed on Wednesday, Dec. 27.
“The Al-Aqsa Flood was one of the acts of revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani by the U.S. and the Zionists,” IRGC spokesman Brig. Gen. Ramezan Sharif told Iran’s state-run ISNA news agency, using Hamas’s name for the Oct. 7 cross-border attacks.
“Certainly, these acts of revenge will continue in different times and places,” stated Sharif, vowing to avenge Razi Mousavi, the Iranian major general killed in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria earlier this week.
The IRGC spokesman alleged that Israel took out Mousavi due to the “irreparable defeats” it suffered over the past weeks and “to get rid of the pressure of the relentless attacks of the resistance front in Gaza.”
In a statement responding to Sharif’s remarks, Hamas denied the IRGC’s claim, insisting the massacre was a response to alleged Israeli “crimes” at Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
“We have repeatedly confirmed the motives and reasons for Operation Al Aqsa Flood, and foremost are the dangers that threaten Al Aqsa Mosque,” stated the Iranian-backed terror group. “We also confirm that all acts of Palestinian resistance come in response to the Zionist occupation and its ongoing aggression against our people and our holy sites.”
Iran supports Hamas by supplying it with funding, intelligence, weapons and technological knowledge, and the Biden administration has described the Islamic Republic as being “complicit” in the Oct. 7 attacks.
