White House: Iran complicit in Hamas attacks, but no intel showing direct involvement in planning

White House national security spokesperson John Kirby says Iran is complicit in Hamas terror attacks against Israel.

“Iran has long supported Hamas and other terrorist networks throughout the region with resources capabilities training,” Kirby tells MSNBC, as cited by Reuters.

“And so in that regard, clearly, Iran is complicit here, but in terms of specific evidence on this, these sorts of attacks, no, we don’t have anything,” he says.

“Absolutely, there’s a degree of complicity here writ large,” he says, while clarifying that there’s still no intelligence proving Tehran was directly involved in planning the attack.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that “Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas’s Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday,” citing senior members of Hamas and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement.

A US official said Sunday it was too soon to say if Iran was “directly” involved in the Hamas attack, adding however that there was little doubt that Hamas was “financed, equipped and armed” by countries including Iran.

Iran, which does not recognize Israel and has made support for the Palestinian cause a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, was one of the first countries to hail the Hamas assault. Tehran actively backs terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

On Monday, the IDF also said there was no evidence yet of Iran’s role.

“Iran is a major player but we can’t yet say if it was involved in the planning or training,” said IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari.