Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has once again claimed that Hamas’ attack on Israel was a purely “Palestinian operation”, although Iran supports the group.

Amir-Abdollahian who was meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus as part of a regional tour, was quoted as saying that Iranian and Syrian support for the Palestinians is not a secret, but repeated Tehran’s position that it was not directly involved in the attack.

Hamas launched a surprise invasion of southern Israel on October 7, using thousands of forces who killed well over 1,000 Israeli civilians, prompting a siege of Gaza and relentless Israeli bombing of targets in the Palestinian enclave.

The Iranian regime immediately congratulated Hamas, calling the attack a heroic act and organizing street celebration. However, as governments and international media asked if Tehran had a role, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tried to distance the regime, saying the attack was a Palestinian operation.

Amir-Abdollahian also told Assad that “the resistance is capable of resisting against the Zionist regime for a long time.”

The Islamic Republic uses the term “Resistance Front” to refer to many of its proxy militant armed groups around the region, and the Syrian regime. Lebanese Hezbollah and Hamas are the largest of these groups receiving hundreds of million dollars a year from Iran, in addition to weapons and training.

The Israeli military has surrounded the Gaza Strip with the aim of an eventual ground operation that according to officials is aimed to eliminate Hamas as a fighting force. Hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been told by Israel to evacuate to safer areas to reduce civilian casualties.