Hamas Attack on Israel Brings New Scrutiny of Group’s Ties to Iran

NY Times-Oct13th2023

By Farnaz Fassihi and Ronen Bergman

Last weekend’s attack on Israel by Hamas has brought renewed scrutiny of the armed Palestinian group’s longstanding relationship with Iran, and questions about whether the Gaza-based group could have pulled off such a sophisticated and devastating operation on its own.

Iran has a long history of training and arming proxy militia groups in the region, from Gaza to Lebanon, Iraq and Syria. It supports Hamas militarily and has helped it design and produce a domestic missile and rocket system to match the capabilities and material available in Gaza — an impoverished, densely populated coastal strip that has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt for the past 16 years.

And over the past year, there have been signs that Iran and its proxies were preparing to take a more aggressive approach toward Israel.

Gen. Esmail Ghaani, who is in charge of supervising Iran’s network of proxy militias as head of the country’s paramilitary Quds Force, repeatedly traveled to Lebanon for covert sessions with leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, a Shiite Lebanese militia that Iran also supports.

Over the past year, Mr. Ghaani worked to coordinate and unify all of Iran’s proxies, according to public statements from Iranian analysts and five Iranians familiar with the work of the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.