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HAMAS Relations with Iran

Countries are not charitable organizations that give away their money for free, and even such charities give with strings attached. Perhaps it is self-evident to understand the goals of the Hamas movement in strengthening its relationship with Iran, but what may require in-depth analysis and in-depth analysis are Iran’s motives for supporting a movement that does not agree with it sectarianly, and does not identify with it on many regional issues - most notably - the Syrian revolution, with what it brings to it.

Over time the nature of the confrontation between Israel and Hamas changed, which led to more than one war being launched against Gaza. This made it difficult for Hamas to disengage from Iranian support, because it provides military support that no one else dares to provide. Hamas, which relied heavily for its support on its fans and supporters from the Arab and Islamic peoples, suffered from Western and Arab restrictions led by the counter-revolutionary countries (the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt), which are growing closer to Israel, which has made it more in need of Iranian support.

Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement launched an incursion into Israel on October 7th, 2023, attacking by air and ground. While the range of weapons they’ve employed has garnered international attention, none of these armaments comes as a revelation. Both Hamas's armed wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, and Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades have previously showcased these weapons in propaganda materials and military parades as well as using them against Israeli targets. The majority of these weapons have origins in Iran, and those produced within Gaza are also believed to have been developed by the Islamic Republic, with a small fraction originating from North Korea and Syria.

Ghazi Hamad, Hamas’ spokesman, said on 08 October 2023, during an interview with the BBC’s “NewsHour” program, in response to a question about the amount of support Hamas received from Iran to carry out this operation: “I am proud that there are many countries helping us. Iran helps us, and other countries help us, whether with money, weapons, or political support. There is nothing wrong with us doing that.” In Iran, Yahya Rahim Safavi, military advisor to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly welcomed the operation carried out by Hamas, saying: “We declare our support for the Al-Aqsa Flood operation.”

On October 10, Ayatollah Khamenei, while endorsing and commending the Al-Aqsa Flood attacks, disclaimed any involvement of the Iranian regime in orchestrating them. “In the last couple of days, some officials of the [Israeli] regime and their supporters claim that Iran is behind these attacks," he said. "They are mistaken. We support Palestinians [...] but this was the work of the Palestinians themselves.”

The White House said it had not detected evidence linking Iran directly to the Hamas attack, although a senior US official told The Guardian: “Iran has long been a major supporter of Hamas and other groups considered terrorist.” Opponents of the recent agreement concluded by the administration of US President Joe Biden with Iran say that the agreement encouraged Iran to support groups such as Hamas.

Iran had supported Hamas and Islamic Jihad for decades, with money, weapons, training, and technical support. It’s their common method for supporting their proxies as they did exactly the same thing with the Houthis in Yemen, as well as with multiple militias in Iraq or with Hezbollah in Lebanon since 1982. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad have the exception of being Sunni and not Shia factions.

Hamas was founded in 1987 as an Islamic resistance product born from the Muslim Brotherhood. This coincided with the outbreak of the first intifada, the “Intifada of Stones,” which witnessed an acceleration in the movement’s activities against the occupation and an expansion of its popular base. The emergence of Hamas as an active party; He pushed Iran to invite the movement to attend a conference in Tehran in 1990 to support the intifada, and Hamas sent a delegation to represent it. 1991 Iran allowed Hamas to open a representative office in Tehran.

In 1992, Israel deported more than 400 Palestinian leaders and cadres to Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon, the majority of whom were from Hamas. This event has some dimensions; It enabled Hamas to open up externally and gained it varying popular and international sympathy. Delegations from Iran and Hezbollah came to the deportees’ camp offering support to them. As a result, Iran’s knowledge of the nature of the movement increased, and the relationship between them grew somewhat. 2006 Hamas won the legislative elections and formed the tenth government, which was greatly besieged. ran realized Hamas' pivotal role in the Palestinian issue, so it lavished the movement with financial and military support.

With the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, and Hamas not supporting Bashar’s regime; The movement's relationship with Iran declined, and support declined, but without the point of estrangement. In late 2017, the visit of a Hamas delegation to Tehran represented an announcement of the recovery of the relationship from what had disturbed it, and the return of unconditional Iranian support, as stated by more than one Hamas official.

Hamas used to get a lot of its money from taxing goods that entered Gaza from the smuggling tunnels, and they taxed residents also of Gaza, and of course from its patrons like Turkey and Qatar. It receives funds from other sources, like front companies and charities. When Hamas lost funding in and support from Syria and Iran, it turned to the other Sunni regional powers, principally Qatar and Turkey. While it is difficult to say precisely how much financial support Qatar provides to Hamas, in 2012, the Emir pledged more than $400 million. Turkey provides strong political support and is also rumored to donate up to $300 million annually to Hamas.

Relations between Iran and Hamas cooled during the Syrian civil war . Initially, the leaders of Hamas tried to walk between the drops in the war between the Shia-Alawi axis led by Syria , Iran and Hezbollah and the Sunni Mujahideen organizations . The continuation of the war, the saturation of blood and the failures of the Shia-Alawi axis during it led to tensions in relations between the parties against the background of Iran's demand from Hamas to clearly stand by its side . At that time, Hamas was forced to move its offices from Damascus and use the infrastructure it had established in Turkey.

A delegation of members of the political bureau of Hamas visited Iran in the first week of August 2017 , which heralded, according to the Islamic movement's announcement, the opening of a " new page " in relations between the parties. The delegation was headed by Izzat al-Rashq and included Saleh al-Aaruri, Zaher Jabarin, Osama Hamdan and Hamas representative in Tehran Khaled al-Kadoumi.

Members of the Hamas delegation met with senior Iranian government officials , including Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Speaker of Parliament Ali Larjiani, Advisor to the General Guide for International Affairs Ali Akbar Waliati, Chairman of the Strategic Committee for Foreign Policy Affairs Kamal Kharazi and the Special Assistant of the Speaker of the Parliament for International Affairs Hossein Amir Abdel - Lahyan .

Iran has an expansionist project under the principle of “exporting the revolution” and under the cover of “supporting the oppressed,” and from this standpoint one of the reasons for supporting Hamas emerges. One of the features of Iran's project is that it is regional, and this means that it seeks to influence the Arab and Islamic countries, and the largest spectrum of these peoples support the resistance and are hostile to Israel, and here Iran appears at the top of the aspirations of the peoples of the region. Supporting Hamas - which has popular internal and external support - gives Iran soft power as a model that attracts fans of Hamas and the Palestinian cause, so you hear from some Arab elites and their common people; Whoever praises Iran and voluntarily supports its project, the reason is the resistance and Palestine. Through its support for Hamas, Iran shows itself as a project for the Islamic nation and not just for the “Shiite” sect, because Hamas is a “Sunni” resistance, and it has no indicators or sectarian tendencies for rapprochement with the “Shiites.”

The competitive relationship between Israel and Iran stands in the background of the support for Hamas. Some see Iran as an ideological and existential enemy of Israel, with one of its major goals to liberate Palestine. Israel seeks to dominate the region. To do so, it has adopted a strategy that includes obstructing the rise of any influential state, so as not to outperform it in the region. Thus, Iran’s expansionist ambition conflicts with some of Israel’s interests, as the relationship veers between competition and hostility. Iran's penetration into Syria and support for the Houthi is evidence that proves that Iran is not seeking to “support the oppressed,” but also actions that enable its expansion and ambition.

The assistance provided by Iran to Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations allowed them to improve their military capabilities, both by arming themselves with standard rockets and standard mortar shells smuggled into the Gaza Strip, and to receive the technological assistance necessary to create improved rockets with longer ranges than those existing today.

Some of the Iranian weapons were smuggled into Gaza through the tunnels. Gaza has been under siege for years and the weapons are smuggled along with many other things, from food to household appliances. The other part of these Iranian-inspired weapons is manufactured inside Gaza with the support of Iran, which provides its blueprints and technical assistance from outside.

In May 2021, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, leader of Islamic Jihad, said in an interview: “It was Qasem Soleimani (Editor's note: the former commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) who brought the idea of producing missiles inside Gaza by teaching our engineering ranks. All of Islamic Jihad and Hamas engineers are trained by Iran.”

Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, also confirmed in a public speech in May 2019 that the group’s missiles come from Iran. “Let me be clear. If it wasn't for Iran, our resistance would not exist, we would not have these capabilities," he said. "Our people (Arab governments) have abandoned us in the hard times, though Iran helped us with weapons, logistics, trainings, and technical support.”

The Israeli military said North Korean and Iranian weapons which included mines, rocket-propelled grenades, and drones were used by Hamas during its attack on Israel on 7th October 2023. An Iranian mortar launcher and a North Korean-made grenade launcher were part of the haul of weapons recovered with an official saying a total of twenty percent of all weapons used by Hamas during the attacks were from North Korea and Iran. “I think about 5-10% of the weapons here [were] made in Iran,” an Israeli military official, who asked for the condition of anonymity, was cited as saying. “And 10% [are] North Korean. The rest of it was made inside the Gaza Strip.” The official added “I think the most surprising thing was the amount of weapons that they brought inside Israel”.