By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Iran’s attack on Israel drew cheers from many Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday in rare revenge for Israel’s offensive against their enclave, although some said they suspected Tehran had staged the attack. assault more to pretend than to inflict real damage.
“For the first time, we saw some rockets that did not fall in our areas. These rockets were aimed at occupied Palestine,” Abu Abdallah said, referring to the land that became Israel in 1948 rather than the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“We hope that if Iran or any other country goes to war, a solution for Gaza could be closer than ever. The Americans may have to solve Gaza to end the roots of the problem,” said Abu Abdallah, 32, using a nickname rather than his full name.
Many in Gaza have felt abandoned by their Middle Eastern neighbors since Israel began an offensive that has killed more than 33,000 people in response to attacks on Israeli soil by Hamas, which killed 1,200 people and took 253 hostage on 7 October.
However, support has come from Iran and its regional proxies, particularly Hezbollah, Tehran’s ally in Lebanon, which is allied with Gaza’s Hamas Islamist rulers.
Footage released by the enclave showed many residents, including inside displaced tents, booing and others chanting Allah Akbar (God is the greatest) in joy as the skies were lit up by Iranian rockets and Israeli interceptions.
“Whoever decides to attack Israel, dares to attack Israel at a time when the whole world acts in its service, is a hero in the eyes of the Palestinians, regardless of whether we share their (Iranian) ideology or not,” Majed Abu said Hamza, 52, father of seven, from Gaza City.
“We were massacred for more than six months and no one dared to do anything. Now Iran, after its consulate was hit, is responding to Israel and this brings joy to our hearts,” Abu Hamza said.
Iran launched the attack over an alleged Israeli attack on its consulate in Syria on April 1 that killed top Revolutionary Guards commanders and followed months of clashes between Israel and Iran’s regional allies, triggered from the war in Gaza.
Hamas, which has been engaged in a war with Israel in Gaza since October 7, defended Iran’s attack, saying in a statement that the assault was “a natural right and a deserved response” to the attack on the Iranian consulate.
The Palestinian Popular Resistance Committee (PRC), an armed group fighting Israel alongside Hamas in Gaza, said the Iranian commitment could strengthen the Palestinian cause, saying it was the “final nail in its coffin” for Israel. .
Not everyone was supportive. Some Palestinians saw the attack as an attempt by Iran simply to preserve its dignity.
“Curtains lowered on this face-saving theater show… The Palestinian people are the only ones who pay the price with their own flesh and blood,” Munir al-Gaghoub, an official from the president’s faction, wrote on Facebook Mahmoud Abbas Fatah. (NASDAQ:) page.
Others on social media said they believed the assault had been agreed upon with the United States so as not to cause damage, pointing to the hours it took Iranian drones to get close to Israel, and saying this gave Israel ample time to shoot them down.
Meanwhile, Israel continued its military attacks across the Gaza Strip, killing 43 Palestinians and wounding 62 others in the past 24 hours, according to the territory’s health ministry.