Iran Says It Didn’t Help Hamas Attack Israel Despite Conflicting Reports

Iranian officials denied on Sunday that they had anything to do with this weekend’s unprecedented attack on Israeli soil by Palestinian militants, though the country’s mission to the United Nations released a statement supporting the barrage and the Hamas fighters who carried it out. “We emphatically stand in unflinching support of Palestine; however, we are not involved in Palestine's response, as it is taken solely by Palestine itself,” it said. “The resolute measures taken by Palestine constitute a wholly legitimate defense against seven decades of oppressive occupation and heinous crimes committed by the illegitimate Zionist regime.” Earlier in the day senior leaders with Hamas and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group backed by Iran, told The Wall Street Journal that officers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran helped plan the incursion during a series of meetings in Beirut. IRGC officials even gave the ultimate green light for the assault last Monday, the newspaper reported. U.S. intelligence officials have said that they cannot corroborate accounts of Iranian involvement.