"Hamas does not serve the Palestinian people. Hamas serves Iran. Those are the masters of Hamas."—Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of Hamas co-founder Hassan Yousef.
Bracha Levinson was seventy-four years old, and had lived almost all those years in Israel. A single mother, she had raised two daughters in the Nir Oz kibbutz, a mile or so from the Gaza border. She and her bicycle were a fixture in the tree-lined oasis of red-roofed buildings and green lawns. According to her grandson, Yoav Shimoni, her “passion” was watching the news, often devoting four hours a day to it. And she longed for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.1
The Palestinian terrorist group Hamas didn’t share that longing. When Hamas killers struck on October 7, Bracha's first concern was the well-being of her loved ones. On an Instagram video, her granddaughter Mor told what happened. Through her tears, she said:
We woke up in the morning, like the whole country, to sirens. We ran to the bomb shelter, of course. We called grandma immediately; she is used to sirens. We talked to her and she wanted to make sure we’re safe. We made sure that she’s safe…
As soon as we left the shelter, my aunt called my mother, screaming, “Open Facebook! Open Facebook!” Mom couldn’t even open the app; her whole body was shaking. I opened it from my phone and I saw the horror. I saw the biggest tragedy that can even be imagined. My grandmother was on the floor of her home, murdered, on video. All the floor is filled with my grandmother’s blood. She’s lying there. The terrorist just took her private phone. He filmed it and uploaded it to her private Facebook account. That’s how we found out.2
It’s just one family’s story. One of hundreds that unfolded during the bloodiest day for Jews since the Holocaust.
The October 7 Massacre has been called Israel’s 9/11. That’s an understatement. The 1,400 victims, as a proportion of the Jewish State’s population, is equivalent to sixteen 9/11s.
Hamas will pay for what it did. As I write this, Israel has been bombing Hamas targets in Gaza for nearly a month, and has begun a phased ground invasion to rescue some two hundred hostages and dismantle Hamas’s terrorist capability.
But Hamas is merely a puppet. Its strings are pulled by the Islamic Republic of Iran. And sadly, the world is doing very little to make the puppet master pay.
In this post, I’ll lay out the connection between Hamas and the Islamic Republic—Iran’s overarching strategy, the numerous forms of assistance it gives Hamas, and how we know about them. In a future post, I’ll discuss what changes ought to be made to US policy toward Iran in the wake of the October 7 Massacre.
The Iranian Terror Machine
Hamas is just one cog in a vast machine of mosques, educational institutions, real estate holdings, “charities,” and proxy militias that Iran has constructed to spread its Shiite revolution across the Middle East and destabilize nations which it perceives to be obstacles to its hegemony. Nations in chaos are the Islamic Republic’s specialty; it excels at amplifying unrest and exploiting it to infiltrate a society.3 By these means it has all but taken over the Shia Crescent, a band of nations that extends from Iran through Iraq, Syria, and into Lebanon. In addition to Hamas, the Islamic Republic’s dozens of proxy militias include Kataib Hezbollah in Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthi Ansar Allah in Yemen, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in Gaza. They are funded, armed, and trained by the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, which is the international arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IGRC). Quds is commanded by Brigadier General Esmail Qaani, who succeeded Qasem Soleimani after the latter was assassinated in a 2020 US drone strike.
According to the Middle East Forum’s Jonathan Spyer, the evolving doctrine that increasingly governs Quds and its proxies is the “unity of arenas,” the notion that . “the various battles between Iran’s allies and pro-Western forces in the region are parts of a single war.”4 Indeed, we saw an illustration of the unity of arenas in recent weeks as, in response to events in Gaza and US support to the Jewish State, Houthi militants have fired missiles at Israel (they were intercepted by the USS Carney and by a Saudi Patriot missile battery) and Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria launched drone attacks on US bases in those countries.5 As of October 31, there have been twenty-seven such attacks.6
The Islamic Republic and October 7
Despite this apparent coordination among the militias, the extent to which Tehran is calling the shots in their individual operations is a matter of debate. For example, in the case of the October 7 Massacre, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times have reported that there were numerous meetings between “senior members” of Hamas, Hezbollah, and IGRC, including Gen. Qaani, during the months leading up to the attack. As early as March, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah held an online conference with strategists from all Iran proxy militias, where he told them to get ready for a war with Israel which would be a step up from previous conflicts, and include ground assaults.7 In June, an “important meeting” in Tehran brought together Qaani, Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh, and other officials of Hamas and PIJ. While most of these meetings were secret, and we have to depend on anonymous intelligence sources for our knowledge of them, the Tehran meeting was actually reported by Iranian media.8
The series of meetings culminated, according to the Journal, in Beirut on October 2 where the go code for the Massacre was given.9
Officially, US intelligence sources are skeptical. Not only do they claim that they have no knowledge of “direct” involvement by the Islamic Republic—“We don’t currently have that information,” says National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan10—but they also say Iranian officials were surprised by October 7, suggesting that the Islamic Republic was not actually involved in planning the details.
It’s possible, I suppose. It’s also possible that US intelligence is pleading ignorance to protect its sources, or that the Biden Administration is covering for the Islamic Republic as part of a misguided attempt to revive the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear agreement with Iran,.
The Yorktown Institute’s Shay Khatiri argues that “it’s obvious Iran approved Hamas’s attack.” Iran is a dictatorship. The decision must have gone through Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle, because every important decision goes through Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his inner circle.11
Indeed, Israeli Intelligence sources told The New York Times that in retaliation for Israeli operations against Iran, Khamenei recently ordered “a wide campaign against Israel including targeting its citizens abroad, conducting sabotage inside its borders, and smuggling sophisticated weapons to the Palestinians to ignite a civil war in the West Bank.” Khamenei thought the moment was propitious for such a campaign because of Israel’s domestic turmoil over judicial reform.12
Khamenei’s inner circle is a small one. It includes Qaani, but not President Ebrahim Raisi or Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Further, the details of the October 7 operation were kept tightly under wraps in order to maintain the element of surprise.13 Consequently, the fact that some Iranian officials were caught off guard doesn’t mean a thing; they’re not in the inner circle.
The Hamas-Iran Connection
Spyer argues that it’s “irrelevant” whether Iran actually had prior knowledge of October 7, and approved it. Regardless of who fired the starting gun, no one with knowledge of the Middle East doubts that the October 7 terrorists were funded, armed, and trained by the Islamic Republic.14
Hamas is quite open about this. Haniyeh said in 2021 that the Islamic Republic “did not hold back with money, weapons, and technical support” for attacks on Israel.15 And shortly after the massacre, Hamas’s head of external relations, Ali Baraka, said in an interview, “Our allies are those that support us with weapons and money. First and foremost it is Iran.”16
Contacts between senior Hamas and Islamic Republic officials go back to 1990 and ‘91, when delegates from the terrorist group attended two Iranian conferences on Palestine, the latter intended to counter the Madrid peace conference. They were unlikely allies due to sectarian differences: the Islamic Republic is Shiite, Hamas Sunni. Because of this, the relationship had its ups and downs. There was a cooling over the Syrian and Yemeni civil wars, where Iran and Hamas supported opposite sides. The 2017 appointment of Yahya al-Sinwar as Hamas Chief in Gaza brought a rapprochement.17
Financial Support
The extent of Iranian financial support to Hamas is considerable. The US State Department estimates that the Islamic Republic gives $100 million per year to Palestinian terrorist groups.18 Haniyeh said last year that some $70 million of that goes to Hamas, and is spent on manufacturing rockets.19
Training
There are numerous reports from intelligence sources that the Islamic Republic and its proxies trained Hamas terrorists for the October 7 attacks. According to The New York Times, training went on for the past year in Syria and Lebanon, under the guidance of Hezbollah.20 “People familiar with intelligence” told The Wall Street Journal that during September, five hundred Hamas & PIJ terrorists were drilled in Iran; Gen. Qaani himself was in attendance (Once again the US government does not admit to any knowledge of this).21
We also know that the October 7 terrorists received Iranian training because they used tactics that are common to the Islamic Republic and its proxies. For example, the use of motorcycles was new to Hamas, but has been extensively developed by Iranian paramilitary forces for suppressing domestic demonstrations such as the Mahsa Amini protests.22
Weapons
A CNN analysis of photos and video from October 7 identified a terrorist arsenal that is makeshift but substantial: grenades, drones, AK-47s, at least one Soviet DShK .50 caliber machine gun, and thousands of rockets, including Hamas’s trademark Qassam.23
These weapons are either manufactured in Gaza, or smuggled in through the Israeli/Egyptian blockade that has been in place since Hamas came to power there.
One way we know that Iran is supplying weapons and components is that, from time to time, it is caught red-handed. In March 2014, for example, Israeli navy commandoes intercepted and boarded the Panamanian-flagged vessel Klos-C, en route from Bandar Abbas in Iran to Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Hidden in shipping containers under bags of cement, dozens of M-302 rockets were found. With a range of 100 miles, the M-302, built in Syria based on Chinese designs, can reach targets in most of Israel. Based on an inspection of the cargo and its documentation, and the similarity to other weapons shipments from Iran, an investigation by the UN Security Council's Panel of Experts concluded that the M-302s did come from the Islamic Republic, in violation of UN sanctions. “This is the real Iran,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time.24
Had the Klos-C shipment reached Port Sudan, the contraband would have proceeded by road to the Sinai and then been secreted through tunnels into Gaza. The Klos-C shipment didn’t get that far, but, alas, many others did. Just a few months later, a new war broke out between Israel and Hamas. The terrorist organization fired thousands of rockets into Israel including at least one M-302.25
When Abdel Fattah el-Sisi became president of Egypt that same year, he cracked down on the weapons trade. Egypt flooded Hamas tunnels, built deep-water basins and barrier walls to prevent the construction of new ones, and opened the Berenice Naval Base to patrol the Red Sea for smugglers.26
In addition, diplomatic overtures between Sudan and Israel, which eventually led to Sudan joining the Abraham Accords, resulted in Sudan being less willing to serve as a way station along the smuggling route.27
With its traditional routes restricted, Hamas developed new ones. It brought more weapons and components into Gaza via the Mediterranean coast. Cargo was placed in barrels which moved to shore with known currents, or was left in the sea and retrieved by speedboat.28
As with the old routes, the Israel Defense Forces intercepted many shipments.29 Also, as with the old routes, others still got through. In 2020, in order to taunt Israel with the success of its smuggling efforts, Hamas provided video to al-Jazeera of its terrorists purportedly assembling Iranian Fajr 5 rockets.30
Iranian support has also been integral to Hamas’s efforts to build its own weapons. The Islamic Republic provides technical know-how, testing facilities, and components such as guidance systems that are too sophisticated for Hamas’s rudimentary manufacturing capabilities.
Manufacturing rockets in Gaza was the brainchild of Hassan Moghaddam, considered the father of the Islamic Republic’s missile program.31 The earliest Gaza-made rockets, produced under Hezbollah and IGRC tutelage, were decidedly low tech, with fuselages made from pipes and fuel converted from sugar. As time went on, they became more advanced. Designs tended to be similar to but less sophisticated than Iranian weapons, for ease of manufacturing. Leaked photos and blueprints show Farsi writing, and leaked test videos show Iranian landscapes.32
In response to the crackdown on its smuggling routes after 2014, Hamas stepped up its manufacturing capability. In the interview mentioned above, Ali Baraka claimed, “We have local factories for everything, for rockets with ranges of 250 km, for 160 km, 80km, and 10 km. We have factories for mortars and their shells…We have factories for Kalashnikovs [i.e. AK-47s] and their bullets. We’re manufacturing the bullets with permission from the Russians. We’re building it in Gaza.”33
Conclusion
As we’ve seen, the Islamic Republic of Iran has given birth to a monster. Hamas is just one of the many tentacles it extends throughout the Middle East for the purpose of projecting hegemony and exporting revolution. The ties between Hamas and the Islamic Republic are extensive, running the gamut from operational planning to finance, training, weapons, and coordination with other Iranian proxy militias. And although it is a matter of some debate whether Iran’s influence over Hamas extends to actually greenlighting October 7, the massacre clearly fits in with the Islamic Republic’s overarching strategy of unity of arenas.
Our knowledge of the Hamas-Iran connection comes from a wide array of sources: intelligence officials, leaked documents, intercepted shipments of weapons and weapon components, analysis of photographs and video of Hamas operations, meetings between Iran and Hamas operatives, and the toxic utterances of Iran and Hamas’s own leaders.
The relationship has evolved over many years, during the administrations of both Republican and Democratic US presidents. However, there is no doubt that the Hamas-Iran connection has flourished and grown more lethal under the weak, naïve, and feckless policies of the Biden Administration.
What these polices are, and what the US needs to do instead, will be the subject of a future post.
Michael Isenberg likes ribeyes, bourbon, and writing novels about Persia. Please check out his latest, The Thread of Reason, at http://amazon.com/dp/0985329750.
Katherine Carroll, Arielle Schwartz, & Emily Shapiro, “Grandson recounts seeing graphic video of beloved grandmother killed by Hamas terrorists,” ABC News, October 13, 2023, downloaded October 26, 2023, https://abcnews.go.com/International/grandson-recounts-graphic-video-beloved-grandmother-killed-hamas/story?id=103954038; “Murder of man's grandmother was posted online by Hamas,” CNN, October 10, 2023, downloaded October 26, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2023/10/10/tl-yoav-shimoni-jake-tapper-live.cnn; Stewart Bell, “At Israel kibbutz, Hamas killed elders in the street in act of ‘humiliation,’” Global News, October 15, 2023, downloaded October 26, 2023, https://globalnews.ca/news/10025479/at-israel-kibbutz-hamas-killed-elders-in-street-in-act-of-humiliation/.
For a case study in the methods the Islamic Republic uses to infiltrate other countries, see the excellent article on Syria published by the Middle East Forum: Rauf Baker, “Tehran’s Shiification of Syria,” The Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2003, downloaded October 27, 2023, https://www.meforum.org/63851/tehran-shiification-of-syria.
Jonathan Spyer, “Biden Courts Iran as It Wages a Multifront War on the U.S.,” The Wall Street Journal, September 10, 2023, downloaded October 24, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-courts-iran-as-it-wages-a-multifront-war-on-the-us-hezbollah-terrorism-cba87894.
Dishha Bagchi, “Not just US, even Saudi shot down missile fired by Iran-backed Houthis at Israel, says report,” The Print, October 27, 2023, downloaded October 27, 2023, https://theprint.in/world/not-just-us-even-saudi-shot-down-missile-fired-by-iran-backed-houthis-at-israel-says-report/1821492/.
“Pentagon Press Secretary Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder Holds a Press Briefing,” U.S. Department of Defense, October 31, 2023, downloaded November 2, 2023, https://www.defense.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/3575413/pentagon-press-secretary-air-force-brig-gen-pat-ryder-holds-a-press-briefing/.
Summer Said, Benoit Faucon, & Stephen Kalin, “Iran Helped Plot Attack on Israel Over Several Weeks,” The Wall Street Journal, updated October 8, 2023, downloaded October 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-israel-hamas-strike-planning-bbe07b25.; Fassihi, Farnaz and Bergman, Ronen, “Hamas Attack on Israel Brings New Scrutiny of Group’s Ties to Iran,” The New York Times, October 13, 2023, downloaded October 13, 2023, https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/13/world/middleeast/hamas-iran-israel-attack.html?smid=nytcore-android-share; Summer Said & Benoit Faucon, “Iran Is Recruiting Militant Allies to Launch Attacks Against Israel,” The Wall Street Journal, April 14, 2023, downloaded October 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/iran-is-recruiting-militant-allies-to-launch-attacks-against-israel-c40f369f.
“We had an important meeting with Hamas in the presence of Sardar Ghani,” Iranian Students’ News Agency, June 19, 2023, downloaded October 18, 2023, https://www.isna.ir/news/1402032919329/%D8%A8%D8%A7-%D8%AD%D8%B6%D9%88%D8%B1-%D8%B3%D8%B1%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%A2%D9%86%DB%8C-%D8%AF%DB%8C%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%87%D9%85%DB%8C-%D8%A8%D8%A7-%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B3-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B4%D8%AA%DB%8C%D9%85.
Summer Said, Dov Lieber, & Benoit Faucon, “Hamas Fighters Trained in Iran Before Oct. 7 Attacks,” The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2023, downloaded October 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fighters-trained-in-iran-before-oct-7-attacks-e2a8dbb9.
Katie Bo Lillis, Alex Marquardt, & Oren Liebermann, “US intel agencies hunt for evidence of Iranian role in Hamas attack on Israel,” CNN, October 11, 2023, downloaded October 29, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/10/politics/us-intelligence-search-evidence-iran-direct-role-hamas-attack-israel/index.html.
Shay Khatiri, “Why It’s Obvious Iran Approved Hamas’s Attack,” The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2023, downloaded October 18, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-its-obvious-iran-approved-hamas-attack-khamenei-nuclear-deal-f394c477.
Farnaz & Ronen 2023, op cit.
“Senior Hamas Official Admits on Air Israel Invasion Had Been Planned for Years,” The Politics Brief, October 13, 2023, downloaded October 29, 2023, https://thepoliticsbrief.com/senior-hamas-official-admits-on-air-israel-invasion-had-been-planned-for-years/.
Jonathan Spyer, “Political Islam Now Commands the Middle East,” The Spectator, October 21, 2023, download October 24, 2023, https://www.meforum.org/65004/political-islam-now-commands-the-middle-east?goal=0_086cfd423c-779aa9fbe3-34168385.
Ido Levy, “How Iran Fuels Hamas Terrorism,” Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 1, 2021, downloaded October 12, 2023, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/how-iran-fuels-hamas-terrorism.
The Politics Brief, October 13, 2023, op cit.
Levy 2021, op. cit.
“Country Reports on Terrorism 2021,” U.S. Department of State, downloaded October 24, 2023, https://www.state.gov/reports/country-reports-on-terrorism-2021/.
Lillas, et al., op. cit.
Farnaz & Ronen 2023, op. cit.
Summer Said, Dov Lieber, & Benoit Faucon, “Hamas Fighters Trained in Iran Before Oct. 7 Attacks,” The Wall Street Journal, October 25, 2023, downloaded October 26, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/hamas-fighters-trained-in-iran-before-oct-7-attacks-e2a8dbb9.
Ibid.
Isabelle Chapman, Audrey Ash, et al., “Homemade rockets and modified AK-47s: An annotated look at Hamas’ deadly arsenal,” CNN, October 13, 2023, downloaded October 29, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/middleeast/hamas-weapons-invs/index.html.
Michael Crowley, “Officials Say Iran Is Hamas' 'Enabler' in Fight Against Israel,” Time, July 11, 2014, downloaded October 20, 2023, https://time.com/2977228/israel-iran-hamas/; Itamar Sharon, “IDF intercepts major Iranian missile shipment to Gaza,” The Times of Israel, March 5, 2014, downloaded October 31, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/idf-intercepts-major-iranian-weapons-shipment-to-gaza/; Louis Charbonneau, “Exclusive: U.N. experts trace recent seized arms to Iran, violating embargo,” Reuters, June 27, 2014, archived July 1, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20140701004829/http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/28/us-iran-sanctions-un-idUSKBN0F300H20140628.
“Hamas Firing China-Designed, Syria-Made M-302 Rockets: Israel,” NBC News, July 10, 2014, downloaded October 31, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/hamas-firing-china-designed-syria-made-m-302-rockets-israel-n152461.
Adnan Abu Amer, “Hamas opens up on arms, missile supplies from Iran,” Al-Monitor, September 16, 2020, downloaded October 20, 2023, https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2020/09/hamas-reveal-military-secret-weapons-smuggling.html.
“Gaza, Hamas and the New Middle East,” YouTube/Al-Jazeera English, December 9, 2020, downloaded October 21, 2023,
Amer 2020, op. cit.
“Hamas has stepped up its smuggling efforts of weapons and explosives from the sea to Gaza,” Ma’ariv, January 3, 2020, downloaded October 20, 2023, https://www.maariv.co.il/news/military/Article-738904; Emanuel Fabian, “Israel says it foiled Hamas attempt to smuggle arms production parts via sea,” The Times of Israel, May 11, 2022, downloaded October 20, 2023, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-it-foiled-hamas-attempt-to-smuggle-arms-production-parts-via-sea/.
“Gaza, Hamas and the New Middle East” 2020, op cit.
Moghaddam’s death in a 2011 explosion is thought by some to be the work of the Mossad.
Levy 2021, op. cit.; Fabian Hinz, “Missile Multinational: Iran’s New Approach to Missile Proliferation,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, April 26, 2021, downloaded October 20, 2023, https://www.iiss.org/research-paper/2021/04/iran-missile-proliferation-strategy/.
The Politics Brief, October 13, 2023, op cit.