The spate of terrorist murders on the West Bank are sponsored and inspired by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), according to Israel’s intelligence minister.
Gila Gamliel, the Likud government minister responsible for overseeing the work of Mossad and Shin Bet, the Israel security services, said the terror groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad were now acting as Iranian “proxies”.
In an interview with the JC she pointed out that the leadership of both outlawed organisations were in Tehran this week meeting key figures including IRGC commanders and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“We can see that 100 per cent, the IRGC is behind the attacks this year,” Gamliel said. “We see where they get their money and their weapons, and they don’t even try to hide it. Khamenei has told the terror groups it is time for them to push.
“They could not operate in the way that they do without money and support and support from Iran. You see the way the IRGC uses proxies in Yemen and Syria.
“You can see there where the evil comes from. In Judea and Samaria, it’s the same.”
This year has seen a wave of deadly shootings by well-armed, well trained and highly organised West Bank terror cells, including in the murder of British Rabbi Leo Dee’s wife Lucy and their daughters Rina, 15, and Maia, 20, last April.
However, Gamliel said the IRGC threat to Israel also came from Syria and the Gaza Strip, where the IRGC was supplying the terror groups, including Hezbollah, with missiles and rockets.
In Britain for talks with UK Security Minister Tom Tugendhat and to address MPs and peers on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Israel, she told them she had come to make the case for proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organisation “as soon as possible”.
“We can stop the terror threat from Iran, but we need to do it together”, she said.
Earlier this year Whitehall sources claimed Britain was preparing to proscribe the IRGC as a terrorist organisation. But this has been indefinitely delayed due to opposition from the Foreign Office.
Gamliel also told the British politicians that if Iran were to enrich its uranium stockpile to 90 per cent it would be an absolute “red line” for Israel.
Explaining her comments to the JC, Gamliel said: “Israel won’t allow Iran to become a nuclear-armed state. We have the capability to stop that happening, and if we have to, we will use it. Israel knows how to deal with this problem even if we have to do it without the rest of the world.”
She said she deplored recent reports suggesting that American may be ready to sign a new deal with Iran which would see it unfreeze funds and lift sanctions in return for a pledge it would halt its nuclear programme.
She added: “Israel is against any deal that will give Iran the means to finance further terrorist attacks. If they were to spend it on the Iranian people, that would be a very different thing.
But they won’t. They will use it to attack not only Israel, but the UK and the rest of the world.”
Gamliel described her meeting with Tugendhat as “very fruitful” and had promised to visit her in Israel.
“We can and do share a lot of information about the IRGC,” she said, “and we learn from each other. Democratic states must do all they can to stop it – and the threat they pose is not only against Israel, but here.”
Source » thejc