Iranian support for Hamas

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Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2012. Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.jpg
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in 2012.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a key patron of the Palestinian militant organization Hamas, which has controlled the Gaza Strip since 2006. Iran provides Hamas with funds, weapons, and training. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

According to a 2020 U.S. State Department report, Iran provides about $100 million annually to Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas. [4] As of 2023, according to an Israeli security source, Iran had significantly increased its funding for Hamas to $350 million a year. [5]

History

1980s–1990s

Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran in 1998 Ahmed Yassin and Ayatollah Khamenei.jpg
Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin meeting with Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei in Tehran in 1998

Relations between Iran and Hamas strengthened after the PLO pursued peace efforts with Israel. In 1990, Iran hosted a conference in Tehran supporting Palestine, which was attended by Hamas but not by Yasser Arafat. During the early 1990s, a delegation from Hamas, headed by Mousa Abu Marzouk, engaged in discussions in Tehran with senior officials, among them Ayatollah Khamenei. Iran committed to both military and financial backing, with reportedly $30 million per year, in addition to providing military training to thousands of Hamas members at Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran and Lebanon. Furthermore, Hamas inaugurated an office in Tehran, stating that both Iran and Hamas shared an "identical view in the strategic outlook toward the Palestinian cause in its Islamic dimension." [6]

1995 Kfar Darom bus attack

According to the U.S. Department of State, the Iranian Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahian authorized the Kfar Darom bus attack, a bombing operation that targeted a bus full of Israeli soldiers and illegal settlers in the Gaza Strip. Seven Israeli soldiers and one illegal settler were killed. [7] The operation was a joint Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operation, the perpetrator was an Islamic Jihad militant and the bomb was designed by Hamas military wing leader Yahya Ayyash. [8]

Second Intifada

Iran's support for Hamas continued through the violence of the Second Intifada. Following Arafat's passing in 2004 and Israel's exit from Gaza in 2005, Tehran's support progressively increased. [6]

According to Lebanese militant Anis al-Naqqash, during the Second Intifada, Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' elite Quds Force, and Imad Mughniyeh, chief of military operations for Hezbollah, oversaw the smuggling of weapons to the Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad factions. [9] [10]

Hamas seizure of the Gaza Strip

IRGC air force commander in front of the Hamas flag in 2020 (third flag from the right) IRGC airforce commander with flags of Iranian proxies.jpg
IRGC air force commander in front of the Hamas flag in 2020 (third flag from the right)

Iran and Hamas became dramatically closer following Hamas' unexpected win in the 2006 Palestinian elections and its violent seizure of the Gaza Strip in 2007. In 2006, Iran intervened to support the nearly insolvent Palestinian Authority in Gaza, which was now under Hamas control, as foreign aid collapsed. During a December 2006 visit to Tehran by Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, Iran committed to providing $250 million in assistance. [6]

2008-09 Gaza War

According to Arash Azizi, during the 2008-09 Gaza War Hamas used Iranian-engineered missiles, many of its commanders had been personally trained by Soleimani in Iran, and Iranian arms were funneled to Gaza using Sudanese ports and tunnels in the Egyptian Sinai. [11]

Tunnel warfare

After the 2007 imposition of a blockade on the Gaza Strip by Israel and Egypt, the Iranian Quds Force under the longtime direction of General Qasem Soleimani has been active in supporting the further construction of tunnels under Gaza and the smuggling of weapons through these tunnels to the armed wings of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In 2021 senior Hamas representative to Lebanon, Ahmad Abd al-Hadi said:

The idea of [digging] tunnels... Today there are 360 kilometers of tunnels in Gaza. There are more than 360 kilometers of tunnels underground. I won't go into details on this. Two people came up with the idea of digging these tunnels: The first is the martyred commander Imad Mughniyeh, and the second is Hajj Qasem Soleimani who went to Gaza more than once and contributed to the defense plan from the moment it was first drafted. I am not divulging any secret, by the way. The enemies know all this but what the enemies do not know is way more than what they do know. [12]

Iranian Brigadier-General Abdolfattah Ahvazian, adviser to the Commander of the Quds Force, said in November 2023 regarding Soleimani's role in the construction and proliferation of the Gaza tunnel network:

After the martyrdom of Hajj Qasem [Soleimani], the guys from Hamas showed us a movie. I watched the movie, and according to the people of Hamas there, Hajj Qasem had gone into Gaza. He said to them: 'Why are you sitting idly by?' They answered: 'Hajj, there is no way.' So he gave the order to take a Jihadi action, and dig hundreds of tunnels, crossing the [Gaza] borders. Within three years, the Palestinians have dug hundreds of tunnels, approximately 800 km-long, with pickaxes and hoes. These are not the kind of tunnels that only mice can use. These tunnels allow the passages of cars, mules with ammunition, and motorcycles. 700 kilometers with nothing but pickaxes and hoes. [13]

Retired Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps General Ezzatollah Zarghami admitted in November 2023 of having visited and inspected the Gaza tunnels himself along with senior Hamas members, during his active service with the Quds Force:

Fajr-3, which is a 240 mm rocket, was one of our products. Later, we made its warhead smaller and it had a range of 70 km. My first mission was to take this rocket... I say this with the utmost pride and with no fear of anyone. The Leader has already said that we were helping [Hamas]. We support the oppressed everywhere – Shiite Hezbollah as well as Sunni Hamas. These are what [Khamenei] has declared in the past. I traveled to the region as the production manager of those rockets, and I supplied them both to Hezbollah and the Palestinians. For some time, I was inside the very same tunnels that they are fighting from. Six or seven years ago, I posted about this and got the nickname 'yellow canary.' In the tunnels, I provided training about the usage and specification of the rockets. These training courses were highly successful. I saw that they had cages of singing canaries in the tunnels. I praised their commander about their acumen to have music during military work. The commander replied that the birds are not meant for singing, they are meant to be [oxygen] sensors in case the airflow is disrupted. If the airflow becomes weaker, the birds stop singing and drop dead. When the bird dies, we realize that there is a problem with airflow. [14]

In December 2023 Mansour Haghighatpour, also a retired Quds Force General, stated that the creation of the tunnels under Gaza was an effort not only by the Palestinians but by the whole "Axis of Resistance":

The other thing I would like to point out is that the resistance axis, which planned with the Palestinians to build more than 400 kilometers of tunnels under an area of land that did not exceed 40 square kilometers, took various possible “scenarios” into consideration. These scenarios include [Israel] flooding the tunnels with water, pumping toxic gas into them, or blowing up parts of them. Therefore, the Palestinian side in the tunnels knows very well how to deal with all possible challenges. [15]

In January 2024 the Shi'ite cleric Sheikh Jaffer Ladak asserted that Soleimani had played a major role in influencing the strategy of the Palestinian factions, turning it away from the suicide bombing attacks widely employed at the time of the Second Intifada and towards an underground warfare strategy:

Zarqawi was the one who began the idea of suicide bombings and then, he used this influence upon the Palestinians who then felt it was needful to be able to do suicide bombings in the occupied territories. Suicide bombings, of course, not only has a great problem with it, it is not with the flavor of Islamic resistance. It doesn't yield the goals, and also drew the ire of the world community on the Palestinian resistance. Enter people like martyr Qasem Soleimani. And, with his influence, you would actually see that the structure of the Palestinian resistance was overhauled. The tunnels that were being tug, and its relationship with the rest of the Islamic world, particularly those in Lebanon, particularly those in Iran, flourished, to such an extent that now, the so-called strongest army in West Asia still cannot defeat those people who have been starved for more than three months. [16]

During the November 2012 Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Major-General Mohammad Ali Jafari said that due to the geographical isolation of the Gaza Strip, Iran cannot directly provide weapons to Hamas but still provides them with the technology and parts through the tunnels, which is then used by the al-Qassam Brigades to manufacture a Palestinian homemade version of the Iranian Fajr-5 missile that has managed to hit Israeli targets within Israel's capital Tel Aviv. [17]

2023 Israel–Hamas war

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) worked with Hamas to plan its 7 October 2023 surprise attack on southern Israel and gave the green light for Hamas to launch the assault on a meeting in Beirut on 2 October. In the Hamas-led attack, Palestinian militants killed 1,200 Israelis, primarily civilians, and took around 200 Israeli civilians and soldiers hostage. [18] In the weeks leading up to the attack, some 500 fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad received training in Iran, under the guidance of the IRGC Quds Force. [19]

According to The Washington Post , the attack occurred "with key support from [Iran] who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons." [4]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "What Is Hamas?". Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on 2022-10-12. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  2. ↑ "Israel-Hamas War: Iran's Role and Comments". The Iran Primer. 2023-10-10. Archived from the original on 2023-10-22. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  3. ↑ Srivastava, Mehul; Zilber, Neri; Jalabi, Raya (2023-10-09). "What links Hamas to the 'Axis of Resistance' and its patron Iran?". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2023-10-22. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  4. 1 2 "Hamas received weapons and training from Iran, officials say". The Washington Post. October 9, 2023. Archived from the original on October 12, 2023. Retrieved October 22, 2023.
  5. ↑ Nakhoul, Samia (2023-10-16). "How Hamas secretly built a 'mini-army' to fight Israel". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2023-10-13. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  6. 1 2 3 "Iran and the Palestinians". The Iran Primer. 2010-10-13. Archived from the original on 2017-08-07. Retrieved 2023-10-22.
  7. ↑ https://www.timesofisrael.com/us-sanctions-former-iran-intel-chief-behind-deadly-bombings-of-jewish-targets/
  8. ↑ Katz, Samuel (2002). The Hunt for the Engineer. Lyons Press. ISBN   1-58574-749-1.
  9. ↑ Anderson, Tim [@timand2037] (January 9, 2021). "Anis al Naqqash: how Iran's #Soleimani and Lebanon's #Mugniyeh helped #Palestine - From al Mayadeen and MEMRI TV, 31 December 2021" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  10. ↑ @AryJeay (January 5, 2022). "Abdul Hadi, a Hamas leader & Hamas rep in Lebanon, said the idea of digging a tunnel in Gaza, which is more than 360km long, was raised by 2 people. Martyr Emad Mughniyeh & Haj Qassem Soleimani, who traveled to Gaza many times and participated in the creation of defense lines" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  11. ↑ https://dokumen.pub/the-shadow-commander-soleimani-the-us-and-irans-global-ambitions-9781786079459.html
  12. ↑ https://www.memri.org/tv/hamas-rep-lebanon-ahmad-abd-hadi-hizbullah-imad-mughniye-irgc-qods-force-qasem-soleimani-architects-tunnels-gaza
  13. ↑ https://www.memri.org/tv/abdolfattah-ahvazian-advisor-irgc-qods-force-commander-qasem-soleimani-hamas-gaza-dig-tunnels-prophet-slaying-jews
  14. ↑ https://www.memri.org/tv/iranian-minister-cultural-herigage-irgc-general-ezzatollah-zarghami-supply-hamas-hizbullah-rockets-traveled-gaza-tunnels
  15. ↑ https://trendswide.com/assistant-general-qassem-soleimani-to-al-jazeera-net-for-these-reasons-the-gaza-tunnels-will-remain-a-nightmare-for-israel-policy/
  16. ↑ https://www.memri.org/tv/friday-sermon-shiite-mosque-leeds-uk-jaffer-ladak-qassam-soleimani-palestine-resistance-suicide-bombings-iran
  17. ↑ https://www.memri.org/tv/irgc-commander-mohammad-ali-jafari-we-gave-gaza-technology-produce-fajr-5-missiles
  18. ↑ Kalin, Summer Said, Benoit Faucon and Stephen. "WSJ News Exclusive | Iran Helped Plot Attack on Israel Over Several Weeks". WSJ. Archived from the original on 2023-10-08. Retrieved 2023-10-22.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ London, Summer Said in Dubai, Dov Lieber in Tel Aviv and Benoit Faucon in (2023-10-25). "WSJ News Exclusive | Hamas Fighters Trained in Iran Before Oct. 7 Attacks". WSJ. Archived from the original on 2023-10-27. Retrieved 2023-11-02.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
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