Iran's Proxy War Against Israel

by Khaled Abu Toameh

• Last year, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei admitted for the first time that his country was supplying the Palestinian terrorist groups with weapons...."Iran realized Palestinian fighters' only problem was lack of access to weapons" — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Reuters, May 22, 2020.
• The [earlier] denial exposes the extent of Iran's scheme to deceive the international community not only regarding its supply of weapons to the Palestinian terrorist groups, but also concerning its plan to acquire a nuclear bomb and bolster its production of nuclear material.
• Iran... repeatedly violated the terms of the [2015 JCPOA] nuclear deal, according to the UN's nuclear monitoring Atomic Energy Agency.
• Were it not for Iran's financial and military aid, the Palestinian terrorist groups would not have been able to attack Israel with thousands of rockets and missiles.
• In the past, Iran used its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to attack Israel. Iran is now using its Palestinian proxies to achieve its goal of eliminating Israel and killing Jews. This is a war not only between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist groups. Rather, it is a war waged by Iran against Israel.
• The Western powers that are currently negotiating with Iran about the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal are emboldening the mullahs and allowing them to continue their war of "kill[ing] all the Jews."

Were it not for Iran's financial and military aid, the Palestinian terrorist groups would not have been able to attack Israel with thousands of rockets and missiles. Pictured: A barrage of rockets launched toward towns in Israel by the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations from the Gaza Strip early on May 12, 2021. (Photo by Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images)

The Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization announced on May 11 that its members fired a burst of "Badr-3" missiles into Israel, killing two women and injuring dozens others. The announcement was made by PIJ's military wing, Al-Quds Brigades, after the group and other terror factions in the Gaza Strip, including Hamas, fired hundreds of rockets into Israel within 24 hours.

The "Badr-3" missile is an Iranian-made missile that appeared for the first time on the battlefields of the Middle East in April 2019, when the Iranian-backed Houthi militia used it during the fighting in war-torn Yemen.

The "Badr-3" missile carries an explosive warhead weighing 250 kg, and has a range of more than 160 km, according to Debka, an Israeli website that reports on military issues. "The missile explodes within 20m of target and releases a 1,400-piece shower of shrapnel fragments," the website reported.

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