The deputy commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard stated on Wednesday that Hamas successfully disrupted efforts to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel with its attack.

Fars news website affiliated with the IRGC quoted Gen. Ali Fadavi as saying that “Normalization of relations by Saudi Arabia and some Arab countries with the regime occupying Quds was a malicious conspiracy that Americans pursued. They had prepared this conspiracy and were trying to implement it. They had worked on this for years and had reached a particular point.”

Many observers and analysts have commented that the brutal attack by Hamas on October 7 was aimed at derailing talks between the Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United States to reach a normalization deal.

Fadavi stated that with the Hamas attack the normalization efforts totally failed and “those who intended to pursue the effort have now adopted positions against the Zionist regime.”

Top Iranian officials and government media celebrated the Hamas attack as it was unfolding on October 7 and immediately organized street celebrations by regime supporters in Tehran.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dismissed the killing of more than 1,200 Israeli civilians in a speech on Tuesday, saying they were armed and not considered civilians. He also said that many more Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip.

The Islamic Republic had never before so openly demonstrated its ties with, and support for militant Arab organizations as it has done since the Hamas attack. Some of these groups in Iraq and Yemen have even threatened the United States if it continues it support for Israel.