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The head of Iran’s elite Quds Force has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to back Hamas in its war with Israel, claiming that the Palestinian militant group is headed for an “impressive victory” in Gaza.
In a letter addressed to the commander of Hamas’ armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Quds Force leader Esmail Qaani declared that Tehran and its allies “will not allow this brutal enemy and those standing behind him to conquer Gaza and its heroic people.”
“We will do whatever it takes in this historic battle,” Qaani said, adding that Hamas had “proved to everyone that the resistance in Gaza is capable of initiative and innovation, while maintaining its organization and field capabilities.”
Published on Thursday by the state-backed Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the letter comes just one day after Reuters reported that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had informed Hamas that his country would not get directly involved in the Gaza war. Instead, Khamenei reportedly restated Iran’s long standing “political and moral support” for Hamas, but ruled out military intervention.
Earlier on Thursday, however, top Hamas official Osama Hamdan dismissed the Reuters story, telling IRNA: “Instead of providing information, this news agency has published worthless lies.” He added that such reports are intended to harm the image of Hamas and its allies in the “axis of resistance” – a network of Iran-backed militia groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza.
Iranian officials have yet to comment on the Reuters report.
Qaani went on to congratulate the Palestinian armed faction for an “impressive victory and qualitative achievement that is unprecedented in the history of the conflict,” assuring that “Your brothers in the resistance axis stand united with you.”
The Quds Force is the foreign operations arm of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), responsible for military and intelligence missions beyond Iran’s borders. Qaani took over the force in 2020 after his predecessor, Qasem Soleimani, was killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad.
Letter from Osama Bin Laden goes viral
More than two decades after the attacks that ignited the US ‘War on Terror,’ Osama Bin Laden’s anti-Jewish letter justifying terrorism against Americans has resonated on social media and captured the imaginations of pro-Palestinian activists amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Videos with the hashtag “LettertoAmerica” have been viewed more than 13.5 million times on TikTok, apparently beginning with a post on Tuesday by a user named Lynette Adkins. “I need everyone to stop what they’re doing right now and go read – it’s literally two pages – go read ‘A Letter to America,’” she said. “And please come back here and just let me know what you think because I feel like I’m going through, like, an existential crisis right now, and a lot of people are, so I just need someone else to be feeling this, too.”
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Other users reacted similarly to the recently rediscovered letter, which is over 20 years old. Another TikTok user who claimed to be suffering an “existential crisis” said of the letter, “I will never look at life the same; I will never look at this country the same.”
For his part, US Senator Marco Rubio suggested in a post on X (formerly Twitter) that the reactions show terrorist sympathies: “They now understand terrorism is a legitimate method of resistance against ‘oppression,’ and America deserved to be attacked on 9/11.”
Now trending on social media (especially TikTok) people saying that after reading Bin Laden’s "Letter to America," they now understand terrorism is a legitimate method of resistance against “oppression” and America deserved to be attacked of 9/11
— Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) November 16, 2023
Video Credit: @yashar pic.twitter.com/O5bemdTDzw
Bin Laden, who addressed the 2002 letter “to the American people,” condemned the US for supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory and argued that Jews controlled American policies, capital, and media. “The creation of Israel is a crime which must be erased,” he wrote. “Each and every person whose hands have become polluted in the contribution toward this crime must pay its price – and pay for it heavily.”
The Al-Qaeda founder went on to call for the blood of Palestinians to be avenged. “It is commanded by our religion and intellect that the oppressed have a right to return the aggression,” Bin Laden said. “Do not await anything from us but jihad, resistance, and revenge. Is it in any way rational to expect that, after America has attacked us for more than half a century, we will then leave her to live in security and peace?”
The UK’s Guardian newspaper had posted a copy of the letter since an English translation was first published in November 2002. The outlet took down the document on Wednesday. A spokesman for The Guardian told Fox News that the paper had removed the letter because it was being widely shared on social media “without the full context.” The page now links to an article that provides context.
Adkins, the social media user who posted the letter on Tuesday, includes a link on her TikTok page to a fundraising site for “Palestinian rights.” The site calls for a ceasefire in West Jerusalem’s war with Hamas, saying the Palestinians in Gaza are “living through genocide as Israel bombs, starves, and displaces them.”
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