According to the report, citing three unnamed officials each from Iran, Israel and the United States, much of the contraband travels along one of two routes that pass through Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Israel. The operation hinges on Bedouins who smuggle the weapons from Jordan across the border into the West Bank, Iranian officials were cited as saying.
The officials told the Times that Iran had not singled out a particular terror group operating in the West Bank to supply with arms, but was instead trying to “broadly inundate” the territory with weapons in an effort to “foment unrest” against Israel.
The clandestine smuggling operation, said the report, has heightened tensions that Iran, which also arms Gaza’s Hamas rulers, will instigate violence in the West Bank, as the Islamic Republic’s proxies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen continue to carry out attacks on Israel in support of the Palestinians.
Tensions came to a head after April 1, when an alleged Israeli airstrike on Iran’s embassy in Damascus killed seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members. READ MORE
