The Islamic Republic of Iran has claimed that Hamas's October 7 attacks were in revenge for a 2020 assassination of a top Iranian general.
The Iranian Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) in 2020 called the US strike that killed Qasem Soleimani a
"terrorist act."
On Wednesday, IRGC spokesman
Ramazan Sharif directly tied Hamas's October 7 killing spree to the US' slaying
of Soleimani and called it "one of the revenges" Iran plans to carry
out.
Soleimani a top military
commander of Iran, was blown up by a US drone in a strike ordered by former
President Donald Trump.
The attack provoked a furious
response from Iran who called on the UN's Security Council to take formal
action against both the US and Israel - which it also accused of assisting in
the assassination hit.
The killing was being planned
from way back 2017, US officials later admitted, following Trump's announcement
to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal to impose sanctions on the pariah
state.
Before his death, Soleimani led
Iran's military operations in the Middle East as head of the country's elite
Quds Force.
He joined the Revolutionary
Guards - who have been declared a foreign terrorist organisation by the US - in
1979, taking over as head of the Quds Force in 1998
The terror leader was
considered to be one of the most powerful figures in the country, masterminding
Iranian intelligence and military operations abroad.
Hamas swiftly denied Iran's
claims and insisted the October 7 massacres were in response to the ongoing
"occupation" and "dangers threatening the Al-Aqsa Mosque,”
referring to the key Islamic site in Jerusalem.
The move comes as the IRGC
today also addressed the killing of a high-ranking Iranian general in Damascus
on Monday that they have accused Israel of carrying out.
The IRGC called the
assassination an “act of terror” and vowed their response "will be decisive
at the right time and place.”
“We will respond accordingly,
directly or indirectly through the resistance axis," they added.
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