In first comments, Iran’s supreme leader says his country not behind Hamas assault on Israel

Iran’s supreme leader on Tuesday denied that his country was behind Saturday’s bloody incursion into Israel by Hamas militants, even as he praised actions that he said were a response to the “atrocities of the occupying enemy.”

In his first public comments on the convulsive events of the past four days, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Israel suffered an “irrevocable defeat both in terms of military and intelligence” since the start of what the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group Hamas is calling “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.”

Biden administration officials have said they have not seen evidence directly implicating Iran in the Hamas assault from the Gaza Strip, but U.S. officials have also noted the long economic and military support Tehran has supplied to Hamas and other militant groups hostile to Israel. Citing Palestinian sources, The Wall Street Journal has reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guard was involved in the planning for the attack, which so far has killed more than 1,000 Israelis and nearly 800 Palestinians in Gaza, well before it was launched.

“We kiss the foreheads and arms of the resourceful and intelligent designers [the operation] and the Palestinian youth, but those who say that the recent great event is the work on non-Palestinians are making miscalculations,” the ayatollah said, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

He made the remarks during a speech at a joint graduation ceremony for cadets studying at the military academies of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Armed Forces, IRNA reported.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the assault by Hamas was in response to the “atrocities” of Israel, which he said have been ongoing for several years and have intensified in recent months. He also blamed the “current administration ruling the occupying regime,” in an apparent reference to the U.S. government.

“The Zionists brought this disaster on themselves through their actions,” he said, according to IRNA. “When cruelty and crime exceed the limit, which ferocity reaches its peak, one should await the storm.”