Captured Documents Prove Iran’s Support for the October 7 Massacre Planning, funding, and providing training for the atrocities. P.David Hornik
Was Iran behind Hamas’s massacre-and-mass-kidnapping attack in Israel on October 7, 2023? How much of a role did the Islamic Republic play in it?
The day after the attack, October 8, 2023, the Wall Street Journal published a report claiming that “Iranian security officials helped plan” the attack and “gave the green light for [it] at a meeting in Beirut” on October 2. Although the report gives further details, few have accepted it as authoritative because it relies mainly on the word of “senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah” and cites contradictory accounts by others.
A report by MEMRI (the Israel-based Middle East Media Research Institute) from July 24, 2024, cites several Iranian statements about its role in October 7.
The most notable ones include: On October 10, 2023, the Iranian regime’s mouthpiece Kayhan stated, in MEMRI’s words, that “a plan for Israel’s destruction, formulated and organized by Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani and dictated by him to the commanders of the resistance organizations just before his assassination . . . had begun to be implemented. Kayhan in fact clarified that [Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei was party to the plan and hinted twice that a great victory was on the horizon. Kayhan also wrote that Khamenei . . . in August 2023 had suggested that a major operation would take place soon.”
On October 15, 2023, a report by Iran’s Tasnim news agency “stressed that . . . Khamenei had declared that the operation’s name would be ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’ many years before its execution, and that he had ordered the establishment of a joint command and control center—commanded by Iran—for the resistance groups, with Iran providing weapons and training.”
On December 25, 2023, a spokesman for the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) stated that October 7 was Iran’s revenge for Soleimani’s assassination by the US on January 3, 2020. Hours later, Iran’s Fars News deleted that specific claim from its website.
On April 3, 2024, Iran’s Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces stated that Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the Qods Force commander who had been assassinated by Israel in Damascus two days earlier, had played a role “in the planning and execution of Al-Aqsa Flood.”
Although none of this should be discounted, a new report by Israel’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, which has close ties with the Israeli security establishment, offers clear-cut proof of Iran’s role in the October 7 attack based on documents captured in Gaza by the Israeli army.
The main findings:
- “The Iranian leadership, led by . . . Khamenei, claimed they had had no advance knowledge of the timing of Hamas’ attack and massacre on October 7, 2023. Captured documents do not verify Iran’s knowledge of the timing but indicate that Hamas coordinated with Iran for about two years in preparation for a strategic operation against Israel, with the leaderships of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran preparing both strategically and tactically for a defining event against Israel.”
- “A letter sent by [assassinated Hamas official] Marwan Issa to [Hamas leader, eliminated by Israeli forces] Yahya al-Sinwar and [Hamas official] Khalil al-Haya . . . on December 18, 2022, indicates that an agreement was reached between Hamas and Iran for an ad hoc budget of $7 million per month throughout the year to prepare for a confrontation with Israel. . . . The document also dealt extensively with smuggling weapons from Iran to Gaza as part of preparing for the campaign. It mentioned that Hamas outlined routes for smuggling weapons from Yemen through a network of trusted smugglers and even noted an agreement with the Iranians on smuggling via submarine.”
- “Iran dealt with training Hamas terrorist operatives to use UAVs to attack Israel. Hamas operated a unit called the ‘shadow unit,’ composed of elite fighters from its military wing and operating under the full supervision of al-Sinwar. Its operatives were covertly sent to Iran for advanced training, emphasizing the behind-the-scenes cooperation between Iran and Hamas for carrying out attacks against Israel.”
Hamas’s drones, of course, played a major role on the morning of October 7, disabling surveillance cameras and automated guns Israel had stationed along the Gaza border and clearing the way for Hamas’s murderous invasion.
Although there still appears to be no proof that Iran was operationally involved in the attack itself, or was aware of its timing, the captured documents make it clear beyond a doubt that Iran helped plan the attack, financed it in advance, gave the Hamas fighters crucial training for it, and took part in the smuggling of weapons that—amost certainly—were used in it.
Iran, unlike Israel, is not being charged with “genocide” and “starvation” of civilians by courts in The Hague; continues to be an accepted, functioning, ostensibly legitimate member of the United Nations; and was granted major sanctions relief and other favors by the Biden administration that allowed it to transform a relatively calm Middle East into the violent turmoil of today. The incoming administration is likely to have a clearer notion of what the Iranian regime is and to deal with it more effectively.
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