IRGC commander reveals secrecy behind Hamas’s October 7 attack

The commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, Brigadier General Esmaeil Qaani, has said that Hamas's October 7, 2023 "Al-Aqsa Storm" operation against Israel was carried out under such strict secrecy that even senior leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah were unaware of its timing.

“A notable point was that neither we, nor Seyed Hassan, nor even the senior leaders of Hamas were informed of the exact timing of this operation. When the start of the operation in Gaza was announced, Haniyeh was on his way to the airport for travel to Iraq and effectively learned about it while returning," he said in a televised interview on October 3, Caliber.Az reprts per Tasnim.

He added that although the exact timing was not shared in advance, “martyr Seyed Hassan Nasrallah had carefully and methodically specified the necessary stages.”

According to Qaani, "Hezbollah’s pressure on Israel" forced significant troop deployments.

“The pressures mounted by Hezbollah forced the Zionist regime to deploy one-third of its army to southern Lebanon. The regime could not withstand this and the equation of the war was overturned,” he said.

By Sabina Mammadli