Iranian ambassador to UN denies involvement in Israel massacre — but boasts about ‘training’ Palestinian terrorists

Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Tuesday denied that the Islamic republic had any involvement in orchestrating last October’s Hamas terrorist attack on Israel — but acknowledged in the same interview that the Iranian regime arms, trains and empowers Palestinian terror groups. 

“We have not participated in this decision,” Amir Saeid Iravani told NBC News anchor Lester Holt when asked about Iran’s role in the Oct. 7 2021, attack that left 1,200 dead in the Jewish state.  

“It was the Palestinian decision and the Palestinian implementation. We have … no role in this case,” he added.

However, Iravani was quick to detail the Iranian regime’s extensive efforts to support “resistance” against Israel and the West in the Middle East region. 

“In the case of the Palestine [sic], we’re sending arm [sic], we’re training them and empowering them,” the UN ambassador said. “But with the other parts of the region, resistance part of the, in the region, we have some coordination, cooperation, consultation, and maybe some financing also.” 

The US has said that Hamas — which governs the Gaza Strip — is heavily subsidized by Iran, with funding from the nation’s capital, Tehran, coming in at around $100 million per year.

US officials have also linked Iran to Lebanese-based terror group Hezbollah, Palestine Islamic Jihad of the West Bank and groups in Iraq and Syria that have targeted US forces since Israel’s declaration of war against Hamas, leading to the deaths of three US service members last month.

Iravani denied that Tehran has been arming Houthi rebels in Yemen. The Houthis were re-designated a terror group by the Biden administration earlier this year after numerous attacks on commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, which triggered a US-led bombing campaign of Houthi targets in Yemen.

“Not at all,” the ambassador said when asked whether Iran has been sending sophisticated weapons to the Houthis. 

“No. It is depend to them,” he added, when probed about Iran’s role in directing Houthi attacks in the Red Sea. “They have their own weapons. See, they have been eight years under the war. They have a lot of experiences.”