Hamas says Iran backed attack on Israel; GOP candidates hammer Biden for releasing $6 billion in frozen funds to Iran

Hamas militants invaded Israel early Saturday in a sneak attack that killed over 700 Israeli soldiers and citizens, plus more than 100 taken hostage. Hamas fighters were able to easily breach Israel's militarized and fortified border to launch the shocking invasion.

On Saturday night, Israel's security cabinet approved a declaration of war – which allows the government to order "significant military action that may lead, with a level of probability close to certain, to war."

Israel Defense Forces have launched a counter-offensive and have leveled several buildings in the Gaza Strip with airstrikes.

Hamas spokesperson Ghazi Hamad told BBC that the militant group had received support from its ally Iran for its murderous onslaught on Israel.

The Wall Street Journal reported, "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, according to senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah, another Iran-backed militant group."

"Officers of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had worked with Hamas since August to devise the air, land, and sea incursions — the most significant breach of Israel’s borders since the 1973 Yom Kippur War — those people said," according to the outlet. "Details of the operation were refined during several meetings in Beirut attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups, including Hamas, which holds power in Gaza, and Hezbollah, a Shiite militant group and political faction in Lebanon, they said."

However, the Biden administration has downplayed the possibility of Iran being involved with the Palestinian attack on Israel.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Sunday, "In this specific instance, we have not yet seen evidence that Iran directed or was behind this particular attack."

Blinken conceded that Hamas and Iran have had "a long relationship."

"Look, who opposes normalization? Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran," Blinken told "State of the Union" host Dana Bash. "So it wouldn't be a surprise that part of the motivation may have been to disrupt efforts to bring Saudi Arabia and Israel together, along with other countries that may be interested in normalizing relations with Israel."

Republican presidential candidates hammered the Biden administration for releasing $6 billion in frozen funds to Iran.

In September, President Joe Biden agreed to release nearly $6 billion in frozen Iranian assets as part of a deal to set free five Americans who had been detained in Iran for years.

Bash asked Blinken about the decision to release $6 billion to Iran.

"First, with regard to the funds that you mentioned that were released to or made available to Iran for humanitarian purposes as part of getting Americans back who were being held and detained in Iran, let's be very clear about this," Blinken replied. "And it's deeply unfortunate that some are playing politics when so many lives have been lost and Israel remains under attack."

Blinken alleged that the funds are only for "humanitarian purposes," and "not a single dollar has been spent from that account."

GOP presidential hopeful Nikki Haley weighed in, "I actually think it was irresponsible for Secretary Blinken to say that the $6 billion doesn’t weigh in here. I mean let’s be honest with the American people and understand that Hamas knows and Iran knows they’re moving money around as we speak because they know $6 billion is going to be released."

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis told Newsmax on Saturday, "They have not only the right but the duty to defend themselves, and they need to defend themselves with overwhelming force. This is a terrorist attack, which is equivalent to what we suffered on 9/11."

"We also need to understand what is the source of this terrorism, and the source is Iran," the Republican governor stated. "Iran is funding Hamas. Iran is funding Hezbollah, who may be getting into this fight that has been made possible by the Biden administration's loosening sanctions. Iran has made much more on oil revenue under the Biden administration."

"And then this more recent $6 billion. Yeah, they're saying, 'Oh, well, that money could not be used for that,' and that that may be true. But money's fungible," DeSantis explained. "So when you give them money, $6 billion for something that they don't need to use their own money for that, and then they can shift it. And so that's what's happened. And they've empowered some really, really bad people. They've been doing it for years."

Blinken was asked by "Meet the Press" host Kristen Welker about the money being fungible.

"Iran has, unfortunately, always used and focused its funds on supporting terrorism, on supporting groups like Hamas, and it’s done that when there have been sanctions, it’s done that there haven’t been sanctions. And it’s always prioritized that," Blinken replied. "And again, I come back to the proposition that from – these funds have always been, under the law, available to Iran to use for humanitarian purposes. The Trump administration set up a very similar mechanism to enable Iran to use these kinds of assets for humanitarian purposes. We’ve done the same thing."

Former President Donald Trump asserted that Biden had "whittle[d] away” peace in the Middle East.

"These Hamas attacks are a disgrace and Israel has every right to defend itself with overwhelming force," Trump declared. "Sadly, American taxpayer dollars helped fund these attacks, which many reports are saying came from the Biden Administration."

Blinken announced in May 2021, "In total, we are in the process of providing more than $360 million of urgent support for the Palestinian people, and across these efforts, we will work with partners to ensure that Hamas does not benefit from these reconstruction efforts."

The Washington Free Beacon previously reported, "More than $360 million in U.S. funding was given to the PA in 2021, potentially in violation of a bipartisan law known as the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits the American government from giving the Palestinians aid as long as they pay terrorists."

The Biden administration provided funds to Palestine despite concerns from its own State Department that the money would fund Hamas terrorists.

"We assess there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza. There is less but still some risk U.S. assistance would benefit other designated groups," the State Department wrote in a draft sanctions exemption request in March 2021. "Notwithstanding this risk, State believes it is in our national security interest to provide assistance in the West Bank and Gaza to support the foreign policy objectives."

A U.S. State Department report from 2021 declared that Iran has supported terrorist-related activity for "Hizballah, Palestinian terrorist groups in Gaza, and various terrorist and militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Bahrain, and elsewhere throughout the Middle East."

In an effort to "create instability in the region," Iran previously provided "weapons systems and other support to Hamas and other U.S.-designated Palestinian terrorist groups, including Palestine Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command. These groups were behind numerous deadly attacks originating in Gaza and the West Bank."

"Iran pursued or supported terrorist attacks against Israeli targets in 2021, including a thwarted January plot to attack an Israeli embassy in East Africa, a January bomb attack outside the Israeli embassy in New Delhi for which the Indian government said the IRGC-QF was responsible, and a disrupted attempt to attack an Israeli businessman in Cyprus in October," the Department of State said.

Iran has utilized the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) to provide support to terrorist organizations.

"Since the end of the 2006 Israeli-Hizballah conflict, Iran has supplied Hizballah in Lebanon with thousands of rockets, missiles, and small arms in violation of UNSCR 1701," the report added. "Israeli security officials and politicians expressed concerns that Iran was supplying Hizballah with advanced weapons systems and technologies, as well as assisting the group in creating infrastructure that would permit it to indigenously produce rockets and missiles to threaten Israel from Lebanon and Syria. Iran has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in support of Hizballah and trained thousands of its fighters at camps in Iran."

Iranian officials have celebrated the devastating attack on Israel.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan'ani said of Palestine's Operation al-Aqsa Storm, "What happened today is in line with the continuation of the victories of the resistance in the face of the Zionists in various fields, including in Syria, Lebanon, and the occupied territories."

On Sunday, Hezbollah boasted that it had launched guided rockets and artillery at Israel to show that they stand "in solidarity" with the Palestinian people, according to Reuters. Israel Defense Forces said it retaliated by using artillery to attack "Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure" in Lebanon.

Just days before the attack, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proclaimed, "Today, the Palestinian movement is more alive than it has ever been during these 70 or 80 years. The honorable Imam [Khomeini], may God be pleased with him, described, the usurper [Zionist] regime as a cancer. This cancer will definitely be eradicated, God willing, at the hands of the Palestinian people and the resistance forces throughout the region."

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh bragged in 2021, "All the missiles you might see in Gaza and Lebanon were created with Iran’s support."

Members of the Iranian parliament opened their Saturday session by chanting: "Death to Israel" and "Israel will be doomed, Palestine will be the conqueror."

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