Episode 53: Iran and the Resistance

First aired on 29 January 2023

As the Palestinian resistance factions increasingly come together and take the fight to the Zionist entity, what kind of support are they getting from outside?

Even its worst enemies recognize that since its establishment in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran has become “a leading patron” of the Palestinian cause. Those are the words of the Zionist front group United Against Nuclear Iran. They are quite correct. How has Iran supported the legitimate resistance of the Palestinians?

Earlier this year tens of thousands of Iranians took part in the annual Quds Day rallies in the capital, Tehran, in a major show of support for Palestine. Similar marches and events happened in more than 900 cities and villages nationwide, according to officials.

Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who was the keynote speaker of the event in Tehran, told the gathered crowd that Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini established Quds Day shortly after the 1979 revolution to let the world know that Palestine was not alone.

He said the current Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei subsequently established the Quds Force, the overseas arm of the IRGC, to “expand the Islamic revolution in other Islamic countries with the aim of pressuring the Zionist regime and in the near future, the regime’s elimination from the world’s political geography”.

Even the Jerusalem Post recognizes the strategy being adopted by Iran of unifying the resistance. A strategy which is visibly now in operation. In the unity Intifada of May 2021 it was revealed on the Lebanese news service Al Manar that a joint operation room was established in Beirut in response to Zionist attacks on Gaza.

It involved officers from Hezbollah, Hamas and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps The Commander of IRGC’s Al-Quds Force, General Esmail Qaani, visited Lebanon twice to attend the meetings.

The Palestinian factions were provided with data about the movements of the Israeli occupation military, which frustrated the enemy’s plot to ambush the Palestinian fighters near the Gaza border.

According to the editor-in-chief of the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar, Ibrahim Al-Amin: "Had 'Israel' expanded its aggression, the entire axis of resistance would have confronted it."

Among the other support from Iran is funding, weapons and training. In 2020 al Jazeera broadcast revelations from Hamas about the weapons being supplied by Iran. The program "What is Hidden is Greater" showed members of Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, collecting Iranian Fajr missiles and Kornet Anti-Tank shells.

The Islamic Republic of Iran stands fully behind the Palestinian factions and is central to the wider axis of resistance.