FM: Iran unaware of Operation Al-Aqsa Storm, will continue backing Hamas politically
Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian has reiterated that his country was not aware of the October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Storm by Palestine’s Hamas Resistance Movement against Israel, saying that what Hamas did was a completely Palestinian decision.
The foreign minister made the comment in an interview with American television, CBS, during his last week’s trip to Geneva, Switzerland.
Hamas is a freedom-seeking movement that fights the Israeli occupation based on international law, Amirabdollahian said, adding that based on international law, people of an occupied country can enter into war to defend themselves.
“We are opposed to killing women and children everywhere”, the top diplomat told CBS, but “what Hamas did was based on its legitimate right to defend itself.”
Amirabdollahian also said that Iran will continue to politically support Hamas.
On the question of whether Iran supports resistance movements like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansarullah in their operations against the Israeli regime, Amirabdollahian said that the Islamic Republic supports these movements, but they shoulder responsibility for their own decisions and that they have clearly announced that they would not remain indifferent towards the Israeli genocide in Gaza.
The foreign minister echoed the same comments regarding Iraq-based resistance groups, which have in recent weeks carried out attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for Washington’s support for the Tel Aviv regime in the Gaza war. He said that Iran has no proxies in the region and those groups act based on their decisions.