Iran’s fingerprints are “all over” Hamas’ attack on Israel, President Trump’s ambassador to Jerusalem, told the New York Sun in an interview Sunday. His remarks come as Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan, told reporters at UN headquarters that the violent attack will fundamentally alter Israel’s strategy in fighting the terrorist group.

“The era of reasoning with these savages is over,” Mr. Erdan told reporters at the United Nations headquarters on Sunday. “Now is the time to obliterate Hamas’s terror infrastructure to completely erase it so that such horrors are never committed again.”

Asked whether Iran or other UN member states were involved in Hamas’s surprise attack on Saturday, Mr. Erdan said he would not “share our plans with the enemy.” According to Ambassador Friedman, Mr. Trump’s envoy to the region, “Iran has their fingerprints all over this.” 

The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday evening that Iran had helped plot the attack on Israel and that its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had given the go-ahead for the attack in a phone call Monday. The Sun’s Benny Avni reported Sunday morning on some of the Iranian oversight of the attack planning.   

The Journal’s report documented meetings at Beirut over months between the leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Quds force, Ismail Qaani, and Hamas military chief, Saleh al Arouri. The report says Iran green-lit the attack Monday in a Beirut meeting. 

Mr. Friedman, in his interview with the Sun via phone from Israel, said Iran has a clear objective to destroy any chances of reconciliation between Israel and Saudi Arabia. “This is the cheapest way for Iran to get what it wants,” he says.

Mr. Erdan’s remarks came before a meeting convened by the UN Security Council, during which he urged the council to condemn the violence wielded by Hamas and advocate for Israel’s right to self defense. “The international community, and particularly the UN and the Security Council, have a very short memory when it comes to Israel,” Mr. Erdan said. 

“Today, we are shattering the paradigm. We are changing the equation,” the ambassador said, decrying other nations’ longstanding attempts to reason with Hamas by providing aid to Gaza, “Hamas’s war machine,” as he described it. He asserted that “economic incentives cannot change genocidal ideologies.”

Soon after, the Palestinian Permanent Observer to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, took the podium. He slammed the rising death toll of Palestinians, asking, “where is the international protection?” He insisted that “we chose the peaceful way, the one that the international community advocates for. Do not let Israel prove us wrong for our sake — and for yours.”

“I don’t buy that,” says Mr. Friedman of the Palestinian plea for UN support. “That’s a platitude that misses the point of what’s happening right now.” 

Hamas is “no different” than Isis and Al-Qaeda and will accept nothing short of the annihilation of the Jewish state, Mr. Erdan said during his speech. He showed photos of Israeli women strewn in the streets and of a grandmother who appeared to have been forced to hold a terrorist’s rifle.

“Israel’s objective,” Mr. Freidman says, “is to kill every single person that is part of the Hamas organization.” His key point is that “It’s no longer about degrading Hamas’ capabilities. It’s about eliminating Hamas. It’s about winning a war instead of managing a conflict.”