By Al-Fassel | 2023-10-11

BEIRUT -- Iran was involved in the lead-up to the air, land and sea attacks on Israel that Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out from Gaza, senior officials from the militant group and multiple analysts say.

"Iranian security officials helped plan Hamas's Saturday surprise attack on Israel and gave the green light for the assault at a meeting in Beirut last Monday," the officials told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday (October 8).

The militia officials said officers of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) helped devise the attacks over the course of several meetings held in Beirut since August.

Representatives of four Iran-backed militant groups reportedly attended the October 2 meeting, including Hamas and Hizbullah, the officials said.

The IRGC directly backs Lebanese Hizbullah and also supports Hamas, which controls the Palestinian enclave of Gaza. The United States and others have designated both groups as terror organizations.

Hamas militants penetrated Israel at dawn Saturday under cover of a massive rocket barrage, staging an assault many are calling the worst Israeli-Palestinian violence in decades and that has resulted in heavy civilian casualties on both sides.

Iran's fingerprints

Iran, which in June hosted talks with leaders of Hamas and the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad, was one of the first countries to praise Hamas's bloody Saturday assault on Israel and Israeli civilians.

Yahya Rahim Safavi, a senior adviser to Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, voiced support for the attack, calling it a "proud operation."

Lebanese Hizbullah also praised Hamas for its "heroic operation."

Khamenei on Tuesday denied any Iranian involvement in the attack, following a similar statement issued by Iran's permanent mission to the United Nations.

But analysts said Iran surely played some role.

"We cannot see Hamas launching an attack of this magnitude and complexity without getting support or assistance from Iran," political analyst Tariq al-Shammari told Al-Fassel.

"It is highly likely that quite some time ago the attackers received special and professional-type training on maneuvering, infiltration and breaching border barriers from Iranian officers in the IRGC," he said.

It is also possible, al-Shammari said, that the IRGC may have planned the attack itself or provided advice and intelligence to Hamas.

A US official on Sunday told the Wall Street Journal it was too soon to say if Iran was "directly" involved in the attack, but added there was little doubt that Hamas was "financed, equipped and armed" by countries including Iran.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States did not have "anything that shows us that Iran was directly involved in this attack, in planning it or in carrying it out."

But he added Hamas "wouldn't be Hamas without the support it's had for many years from Iran."

Hamas-Iran cooperation

"There is close political cooperation between Hamas and the Iranian axis," a Lebanese political analyst with deep knowledge of Hizbullah and its relationship with Hamas told Al-Fassel.

Iran provides Hamas with financial support so it can arm itself and fund its activities, said the source, who wished to remain anonymous.

Hamas "receives continuous financial support from Iran, and benefits from Hizbullah's political, media and cultural support, and from facilitating the movement of its leaders and the promotion of its ideas and project," he said.

Meetings held in recent months among Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian advisers "were political in essence," he said, and intended to "reiterate the strategic alliance and cooperation" between them.

According to the Lebanese political analyst, Iran "will seek to take advantage of the Gaza events" in order to impose its hegemony and the "axis of resistance it leads" on the region.

Saturday's massive attacks on Israel must have required "more than one year of financing, planning and training," political writer Tony Boulos told Al-Fassel.

"Iran and Hizbullah no doubt stand behind the funding, training and support [that was needed] to prepare for such an attack," he added, regardless of whether or not they knew about the specifics of this particular attack.

Saudi-Israeli normalization

The attack was preceded by positive signals about the possibility of a normalization of ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel, political analyst al-Shammari said.

This greatly irked Tehran, he noted, which sought to disrupt the rapprochement at any cost.

Al-Shammari said the Iranians saw the prospective of Israel's normalization of ties with influential regional countries such as Saudi Arabia as posing "a real threat" to their strategic interests and agenda.

Tehran threatened to "cut off the path" to Saudi-Israeli normalization, as stated by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Khamenei had also attacked the normalization efforts in an October 3 speech, without mentioning Saudi Arabia by name.

Tehran is worried about a strengthening of the security alliance between the Gulf states and Israel, which it sees as a major threat to its regional influence.

Iranian people respond

While the Iranian regime has been expressing its support for Hamas, many Iranians are angered by their government's actions and pronouncements.

On Sunday, after a few regime-affiliated Iranians entered Tehran's Azadi Stadium during a major soccer match carrying the Palestinian flag, thousands of spectators denounced the theatrics.

Many Iranians also expressed solidarity with the Israeli people on the social media site X (formerly Twitter), with the hashtag "Iranians stand with Israelis" trending on Sunday and Monday.

"The Islamic Republic's behavior in the region and beyond has angered most Iranians," a Tehran-based Iranian political analyst told Al-Fassel on condition of anonymity.

"They do not approve of the regime's policies and do not want to see the nation's taxpayer money going toward intervention and instability in the region," he said.

[Nohad Topalian and Anas al-Bar contributed to this report.]