Iranian security officials helped the Palestinian terror group Hamas plan its attack on Israel and gave the final go-ahead at a meeting last Monday in Beirut, a report said.

Officers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been working with the Gaza Strip-based Islamic terrorist groups since August to plan the October 7 attack, which sent thousands of rockets and groups of armed gunmen over the fortified Israeli border, killing more than 700, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday.

Iranian officers, as well as representatives from Iran-backed terror groups including Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, refined tactical and strategic plans for the attack during several meetings in Beirut, according to the report, which cited senior members of both terrorist outfits.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had attended at least two of the meetings since August, according to Hamas and Hezbollah members. The attack was also aimed at disrupting US-brokered talks to normalise Saudi Arabia-Israel relations, which Iran saw as threatening, they told the publication.

The Iranian military’s broader plan was to create a multi-front threat “strangling” Israel from all sides: Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, said senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official.

A spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations said his country backed the actions by Hamas in Gaza but added that Tehran did not direct them. “The decisions made by the Palestinian resistance are fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people,” he said. “We are not involved in Palestine’s response, as it was taken solely by Palestine itself.”