WP: Hamas received weapons, training from Iran before attack on Israel

The Palestinian militants behind the surprise weekend attack on Israel began planning the assault at least a year ago, with key support from Iranian allies who provided military training and logistical help as well as tens of millions of dollars for weapons, current and former Western and Middle Eastern intelligence officials said on October 9.

While Iran’s precise role in Saturday’s violence remained unclear, the officials said, the assault reflected Tehran’s years-long ambition to surround Israel with legions of paramilitary fighters armed with increasingly sophisticated weapons systems capable of striking deep inside the Jewish state, the Washington Post says.

Current and former intelligence officials confirmed that Iran had provided technical help to Hamas in manufacturing the more than 4,000 rockets and armed drones launched into Israel since Saturday. At least some Hamas militants also have undergone training in advanced military tactics, including at Lebanese camps staffed by technical advisers from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, the officials said.

Michael Eisenstadt, director of the Washington Institute’s Military and Security Studies Program, said that the relationship with Iran developed as a result of the Oslo peace process in the early 1990s when Tehran was looking for ways to scuttle efforts to forge a peace deal between the Palestinians and Israel. That was when Iran first provided the know-how for the explosive belts used by Palestinian suicide bombers.

Jonathan Finer, the White House’s deputy national security adviser, said in an interview with CBS News: “What I can say without a doubt is that Iran is broadly complicit in these attacks. Iran has been Hamas’s primary backer for decades. They have provided them with weapons. They have provided them with training. They have provided them with financial support. And so, in terms of broad complicity, we are very clear about a role for Iran.”

The leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, acknowledged in an interview last year that his group received $70 million in military assistance from Iran. According to a State Department report from 2020, Iran provides about $100 million annually to Palestinian terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.