Final weekend’s assault on Israel by Hamas has introduced renewed scrutiny of the armed Palestinian group’s longstanding relationship with Iran, and questions on whether or not the Gaza-based group may have pulled off such a complicated and devastating operation by itself.
Iran has a protracted historical past of coaching and arming proxy militia teams within the area, from Gaza to Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. It helps Hamas militarily and has helped it design and produce a home missile and rocket system to match the capabilities and materials obtainable in Gaza — an impoverished, densely populated coastal strip that has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt for the previous 16 years.
And over the previous yr, there have been indicators that Iran and its proxies have been making ready to take a extra aggressive method towards Israel.
Gen. Esmail Ghaani, who’s answerable for supervising Iran’s network of proxy militias as head of the nation’s paramilitary Quds Pressure, repeatedly traveled to Lebanon for covert classes with leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, a Shiite Lebanese militia that Iran additionally helps.
Over the previous yr, Mr. Ghaani labored to coordinate and unify all of Iran’s proxies, based on public statements from Iranian analysts and 5 Iranians acquainted with the work of the nation’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
Hassan Nasrallah, the chief of Hezbollah, held an hourslong on-line assembly in March with an elite group of strategists from all of the Iran-backed militias and informed them to prepare for a battle with Israel with a scope and attain — together with a floor invasion — that will mark a brand new period, based on two members from Iran and Syria. The members spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t approved to publicly talk about the assembly.
There are conflicting accounts of whether or not these actions have been main particularly towards final week’s assault by Hamas, which left 1,200 Israelis lifeless and shattered the nation’s sense of safety.
Some individuals acquainted with the operation mentioned {that a} tight circle of leaders from Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas helped plan the assault beginning over a yr in the past, skilled militants and had superior data of it. That account is predicated on interviews with three Iranians affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, one Iranian related to senior management and a Syrian affiliated with Hezbollah.
Different individuals say they consider Iran had some involvement but it surely was not as deep. “The implementation was all Hamas, however we don’t deny Iran’s assist and help,” mentioned Ali Barakeh, a senior Hamas official based mostly in Beirut.
Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has publicly denied the nation performed a job, at the same time as he and different Iranian leaders praised the carnage. “We kiss the foreheads and arms of the resourceful and clever designers,” Mr. Khamenei mentioned this week in his first televised speech for the reason that assault. However he added: “Those that say that the latest saga is the work of non-Palestinians have miscalculated.”
The US, Israel and key regional allies have mentioned they haven’t discovered proof in early intelligence gathering that Iran straight helped plan the assault. The US has collected a number of items of intelligence that present that key Iranian leaders have been shocked by it, based on a number of American officers, together with individuals who would usually concentrate on operations involving the Quds Forces.
Israel has additionally been inspecting what it knew. “Israeli intelligence doesn’t have any info based on which Iran initiated or was concerned or straight assisted within the horrible assault,” mentioned Nir Dinar, a spokesman for Israel’s army. “However, one needs to be naïve to assume that these in Tehran awakened on Saturday morning and have been shocked to listen to the information about what occurred.”
It might take months or years to study all that went into planning the assault, and why Israel’s refined intelligence operation missed it. Many events have incentives to unfold disinformation or emphasize completely different facets of the narrative; some might wish to increase the battle as others search to restrict it.
“We clearly don’t know what occurred behind the scenes. That is going to be privileged, secret info that was meant to be stored secret,” mentioned Afshon Ostovar, an skilled on Iran’s army and proxies and an affiliate professor at Naval Postgraduate Faculty. He added that it was protected to imagine “some degree of coordination,” as a result of Iran and Lebanon wouldn’t have wished to be caught off guard by the assault.
Hamas gunmen captured and interrogated by Israel mentioned they’d been coaching for the newest operation for a yr, based on Israeli protection officers. Abu Ubaida, the Hamas spokesman within the Gaza Strip, mentioned in a televised speech that the group had organized a 3,000-person battalion for the assault and had one other 1,500 backup fighters. On Tuesday, Israel mentioned it had killed near 1,600 of these attackers.
Mr. Barakeh, the Hamas official in Beirut, mentioned in an interview that the assault plans have been so tightly held that he solely came upon in regards to the assault when he obtained a slew of textual content messages early on Saturday morning.
Nonetheless, coaching had been going down in Lebanon and Syria, and a secret joint command middle had been arrange in Beirut, based on the Iranians and the Syrian acquainted with the operation.
Hezbollah’s prime commandos, skilled in city guerrilla warfare, skilled Hamas members in Syria and Lebanon, based on two Iranians. Paragliders skilled in Lebanon, they mentioned, whereas in Syria, the Hamas members have been skilled to raid Israeli communities and take civilians hostage.
Hezbollah has helped train different Iran-backed militias from the area earlier than, such because the Houthis in Yemen. The Lebanese group additionally deployed fighters to Syria throughout the battle there, the place they skilled and fought alongside Syria’s military.
Over the previous six months, Hezbollah created provocations meant to mislead and distract Israel alongside its northern border with Lebanon and in Syria so it might assume the actual menace was coming from these areas, based on two Iranians briefed after the assault.
An Israeli intelligence official confirmed that lots of of Palestinian fighters from Hamas and different teams, and probably much more, have been skilled in Hezbollah camps in Syria and Lebanon over the previous years. Whereas they might have been skilled on abilities used within the latest assault, he mentioned, that doesn’t imply that the Iranians knew how and after they would use that coaching.
One of many Iranians briefed on the operation mentioned that 4 days earlier than the assault, all these taking part have been rounded up by Hamas commanders and remoted. Their digital gadgets have been confiscated and so they had no contact with the skin world, one thing that might assist clarify why Israel was blindsided. On Oct. 7, a number of hours earlier than launching the operation, this particular person mentioned, Hamas commanders knowledgeable the attackers that they might be invading Israel on speedboats, on paragliders and over land by breaking by means of the barbed wire fence alongside the territory’s border utilizing tractors.
This account of how the assault was carried out couldn’t be independently verified.
Looking back, some warning indicators that Israel missed might now be extra obvious.
In September, Israeli intelligence officers informed The New York Instances that they’d intelligence suggesting Mr. Khamenei, Iran’s supreme chief, had ordered a large marketing campaign towards Israel together with concentrating on its residents overseas, conducting sabotage inside its borders, and smuggling refined weapons to the Palestinians to ignite a civil battle within the West Financial institution.
That was in retaliation for shadow battle operations carried out by Israel in Iran, they mentioned.
It was not the one discuss of broad motion. In varied conferences of Iran’s proxy militias, a number of attendees mentioned, the emphasis from leaders was that it was time to reap the benefits of Israel’s seething inner divisions over the judicial overhaul pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.
Within the assembly Mr. Nasrallah held in March, he informed militants to organize for a battle on a scale that will mark a turning level within the decades-long Arab-Israeli battle (although it’s unclear whether or not he had final week’s assault in thoughts).
Equally, in audio reviewed by The Instances of an April dialogue amongst members of the Revolutionary Guards, together with these concerned with proxies within the area, a speaker mentioned, “The message that’s being communicated from Iran as of late to the resistance is that we showcase a army maneuver to make the Zionist regime perceive it’s surrounded from each aspect.”
Even earlier than the Hamas assault, some Israeli intelligence officers mentioned that in hindsight, they regretted their help for Israeli focused killings in Iran and operations to sabotage its nuclear and army amenities, as a result of they’d not been a major deterrent to both Iran’s nuclear program or its regional actions. Actually, they’d put Iran and Israel on a path of direct confrontation, one of many officers mentioned.
On Oct. 3, 4 days earlier than Hamas launched its assault on southern Israel, Mr. Khamenei’s official account in Farsi posted a message on X, formerly known as Twitter, that mentioned: “Israel will be gone.”
The planners of the fear assault on Israel most actually knew that it carried the chance of igniting a wider regional battle. However the events have lengthy wished to avenge an accumulation of grievances — from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and Syria, to the lengthy blockade of Gaza, to the covert battle towards Iran — amid a long-held collective dedication to destroy Israel.
They could even have hoped to drive Israel into main concessions, like lifting the blockade or maintaining Israeli forces from getting into the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Outdated Metropolis — one among Islam’s holiest websites.
Hamas named its operation towards Israel “The Aqsa Flood.”
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.
