“I don’t want to get into classified information. But to be very blunt with you, there is no clear evidence of that,” Biden said in an interview with “60 Minutes.”
Pressed again whether Iran was behind any of the conflict, Biden reiterated that there’s no evidence “at this point” that Iran helped plan the attack.
Asked about his message to Hezbollah and Iran, and the limited fighting on the northern Israeli border this week, Biden stated: “Don’t. Don’t, don’t, don’t.”
Administration officials say that intelligence, so far, hasn’t indicated that Iran was involved in the planning of last Saturday’s attack, but they continue to assess new information as it is gathered.
“What we think now — again, we have not seen any evidence, specific evidence, that Iran was directly involved with these specific sets of attacks,” White House National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told reporters last week.
“The book’s not closed on it. We’re going to keep looking at that. But that’s just where we are right now,” he added.
CNN reported Wednesday that US intelligence suggests senior Iranian government officials were caught by surprise by Hamas’ attack, according to multiple sources familiar with the intelligence.
One source noted that while Hamas maintains operational independence from Iran — making it plausible that the Iranian government may not have known about the attack in advance — without Iran’s longstanding funding and training to Hamas militants, the group could not exist as it does now.
Iranian officials say Tehran was not involved in the Hamas attack on Israel but warn the Zionist regime’s crimes against the people of Gaza could “ricochet far-reaching consequences”.
