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 might have pulled off such a classy and devastating operation by itself.
Iran has an extended 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 out there 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 had been making ready to take a extra aggressive method towards Israel.
Gen. Esmail Ghaani, who’s in control of supervising Iran’s community of proxy militias as head of the nation’s paramilitary Quds Drive, 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, in line with public statements from Iranian analysts and 5 Iranians conversant in 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 advised them to prepare for a struggle with Israel with a scope and attain — together with a floor invasion — that may mark a brand new period, in line with two members from Iran and Syria. The members spoke on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to publicly focus on the assembly.
There are conflicting accounts of whether or not these actions had 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 folks conversant in 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, educated militants and had superior information of it. That account relies on interviews with three Iranians affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, one Iranian related to senior management and a Syrian affiliated with Hezbollah.
Different folks say they imagine Iran had some involvement nevertheless it 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 primarily based in Beirut.
Iran’s supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has publicly denied the nation performed a task, 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 current saga is the work of non-Palestinians have miscalculated.”
The USA, Israel and key regional allies have mentioned they haven’t discovered proof in early intelligence gathering that Iran immediately helped plan the assault. The USA has collected a number of items of intelligence that present that key Iranian leaders had been stunned by it, in line with a number of American officers, together with individuals who would usually pay attention to operations involving the Quds Forces.
Israel has additionally been analyzing what it knew. “Israeli intelligence doesn’t have any info in line with which Iran initiated or was concerned or immediately assisted within the horrible assault,” mentioned Nir Dinar, a spokesman for Israel’s navy. “Alternatively, one must be naïve to assume that these in Tehran awoke on Saturday morning and had been stunned to listen to the information about what occurred.”
It could take months or years to study all that went into planning the assault, and why Israel’s subtle intelligence operation missed it. Many events have incentives to unfold disinformation or emphasize totally different facets of the narrative; some might need to increase the struggle 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 navy and proxies and an affiliate professor at Naval Postgraduate College. He added that it was protected to imagine “some degree of coordination,” as a result of Iran and Lebanon wouldn’t have needed to be caught off guard by the assault.
Hamas gunmen captured and interrogated by Israel mentioned they’d been coaching for the most recent operation for a yr, in line with 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 had been so tightly held that he solely came upon in regards to the assault when he acquired a slew of textual content messages early on Saturday morning.
Nonetheless, coaching had been happening in Lebanon and Syria, and a secret joint command middle had been arrange in Beirut, in line with the Iranians and the Syrian conversant in the operation.
Hezbollah’s prime commandos, skilled in city guerrilla warfare, educated Hamas members in Syria and Lebanon, in line with two Iranians. Paragliders educated in Lebanon, they mentioned, whereas in Syria, the Hamas members had been educated to raid Israeli communities and take civilians hostage.
Hezbollah has helped prepare different Iran-backed militias from the area earlier than, such because the Houthis in Yemen. The Lebanese group additionally deployed fighters to Syria in the course of the struggle there, the place they educated 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 could assume the true menace was coming from these areas, in line with two Iranians briefed after the assault.
An Israeli intelligence official confirmed that a whole bunch of Palestinian fighters from Hamas and different teams, and presumably much more, have been educated in Hezbollah camps in Syria and Lebanon over the previous years. Whereas they might have been educated on abilities used within the current 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 had been rounded up by Hamas commanders and remoted. Their digital units had been confiscated and so they had no contact with the surface world, one thing that would assist clarify why Israel was blindsided. On Oct. 7, a number of hours earlier than launching the operation, this individual mentioned, Hamas commanders knowledgeable the attackers that they might be invading Israel on speedboats, on paragliders and over land by breaking by 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.
On reflection, some warning indicators that Israel missed might now be extra obvious.
In September, Israeli intelligence officers advised The New York Occasions that they’d intelligence suggesting Mr. Khamenei, Iran’s supreme chief, had ordered a large marketing campaign in opposition to Israel together with concentrating on its residents overseas, conducting sabotage inside its borders, and smuggling subtle weapons to the Palestinians to ignite a civil struggle within the West Financial institution.
That was in retaliation for shadow struggle operations performed by Israel in Iran, they mentioned.
It was not the one speak of broad motion. In numerous conferences of Iran’s proxy militias, a number of attendees mentioned, the emphasis from leaders was that it was time to benefit from Israel’s seething inside divisions over the judicial overhaul pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition.
Within the assembly Mr. Nasrallah held in March, he advised militants to organize for a struggle on a scale that may 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 Occasions 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 lately to the resistance is that we showcase a navy 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 navy services, as a result of they’d not been a big 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, previously often known as Twitter, that mentioned: “Israel will probably be gone.”
The planners of the phobia assault on Israel most definitely knew that it carried the chance of igniting a wider regional struggle. However the events have lengthy needed to avenge an accumulation of grievances — from Israeli airstrikes on Gaza and Syria, to the lengthy blockade of Gaza, to the covert struggle in opposition to Iran — amid a long-held collective willpower to destroy Israel.
They could even have hoped to pressure Israel into main concessions, like lifting the blockade or preserving Israeli forces from getting into the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem’s Outdated Metropolis — one in every of Islam’s holiest websites.
Hamas named its operation in opposition to Israel “The Aqsa Flood.”
Hwaida Saad contributed reporting from Beirut.