Did Hamas act alone? According to the U.S. newspaper The Wall Street Journal, Iranian security officials allegedly helped plan Hamas' surprise attack on Israel on Saturday and gave the go-ahead for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday, "according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iranian-backed militant group."
This alliance would have been sealed as early as August to develop air, land and sea incursions. Several meetings in Beirut are said to have helped fine-tune the offensive, which were reportedly attended by officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
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We don't have any information at this time to corroborate that account," a U.S. official said of the meetings.
Mahmoud Mirdawi, a senior Hamas official, said the group had planned the attacks on its own. "This is a Palestinian and Hamas decision," he said. "We are not involved in Palestine's response, as it is taken only by Palestine itself," a spokesman for Iran's mission to the United Nations said.