Me... No, me? Iran says Oct 7 attack on Israel 'response' to Soleimani killing, but its proxy Hamas junks claims

Iran and its cat’s paw Hamas seem to be on different pages of the anti-Israel book. While Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, in a statement, claimed that Hamas’ 7 October attack on Israel was a response to the 2020 assassination of their celebrated commander Qassem Soleimani, Hamas summarily junked the assertion.

Soleimani, the head of the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps, was assassinated by the US in on 3 January, 2020, in an airstrike.

Al Jazeera citied a statement by IRGC where it mentioned that the 7 October attack in southern Israel was a response to the 2020 assassination of Soleimani.

In response, Hamas said IRGC’s claims were wrong and that the terror organisation’s motives were to end the occupation and threat of Israel.

“We emphasized several times the motives, with the primary one being the threats posed to Al-Aqsa Mosque. Any response from the Palestinian resistance is a reaction to occupation and aggression against the Palestinian people and holy sites,” Hamas said in a release on Wednesday.

Earlier this month, a court in Tehran had ordered the US government to pay $49.7 billion in “material, moral and punitive damages” for assassinating Soleimani.

Then-US president Donald Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad airport that killed Soleimani and his Iraqi lieutenant Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020.

Soleimani held the status of a national hero in Iran, often regarded as one of the most powerful figures in the country, second only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

His influence extended beyond Iran, shaping diplomatic relations and bolstering Iran’s presence in Middle East.

Soleimani led the Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The US had designated the Quds Force and Soleimani as terrorist entities.

He had spearheaded Iran’s Middle East operations and was seen as a hero of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.

On Monday (26 December, 2023), another senior Iranian commander and an aide to Soleimani, Seyyed Razi Mousavi was killed in a suspected Israeli strike in Syria.

Mousavi was “an experienced military adviser” to the IRGC, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said.

It further said Mousavi was killed in an air strike on the Sayyida Zeinab area south-east of Damascus.

Mousavi was a key advisor to Iran’s paramilitary force, the Revolutionary Guard.

With inputs from agencies