Iran’s Islamic regime reportedly knew about Hamas’ October 7 terrorist attack at least several months before it was carried out in 2023, according to newly released documents that were discovered months ago inside Gaza.
The New York Times obtained minutes of 10 secret meetings that Hamas held that included Yahya Sinwar and his top commanders in which they planned the massacre that killed more than 1,200 people.
The Israeli military discovered the documents on a computer in January 2024 as they searched an underground command center in Khan Younis. “Members of and experts close to Hamas” confirmed to the Times that the documents were legitimate and authentic, the report said.
The Washington Post reported that other documents from Hamas showed that the terrorist group had even deadlier plans for its attack on Israel. Hamas’ plans were based on more than 17,000 photographs of Israel that were taken from satellites, drones, and social media postings.
Hamas planned attacks at additional Israeli military facilities, Ben Gurion International Airport, a 70-story skyscraper, and “the Azrieli Center complex which comprises three skyscrapers, a large shopping mall, train station and cinema.”
The terrorist group searched for ways to destroy the skyscraper, hoping to replicate, on a smaller scale, Al-Qaeda’s September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has publicly claimed that Iran had nothing to do with the attack and was not aware of its planing. However, documents obtained by the various publications also debunk this false claim.
It has already been established that hundreds of Hamas terrorists received “specialized combat training” inside Iran from the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF) in the months leading up to October 7.
Iran sent Hamas at least $10 million, the documents state. But Sinwar wanted more and launched a “vigorous appeal” directly to Khamenei, requesting $500 million over the course of two years and training for 12,000 Hamas terrorists.
“Iran trained Hamas and encouraged them to do exactly the things they did on Oct. 7,” said Farzin Nadimi, an Iran expert and senior fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “Their goal was to get to the core of the Israeli state and crush it.”
Hamas was ready to carry out the attack in July 2022, but decided to postpone it. The documents do not state why the attack was postponed, but based on details included in the notes, it is believed to be because they were trying to enlist support from Hezbollah and Iran.
However, the terrorist group did not want to wait too long to launch the attack because Israel was on the verge of deploying a new laser defense weapon to shoot down rockets and missiles, the report said.
Sinwar’s deputy, Khalil al-Hayya, discussed the attack in the summer of 2023 with senior IRGC commander Mohammed Said Izadi and asked for Iran’s help with striking sensitive Israeli military sites within the “first hour” of the attack, the report said.
Izadi said that Iran supported the plan, but needed time “to prepare the environment.”
While Iran did not conduct military strikes against Israel that day, it is not known, at least publicly, whether they provided any kind of logistical, surveillance, or other type of assistance to fulfill Hamas’ request for support during the first hour of the attack. It is clear, however, that Iran knew about the attack well in advance of the massacre.
The Wall Street Journal reported that some of the documents dated back to 2019, when Qassem Soleimani was still the head of the IRGC-QF.
Soleimani told Hamas that they had few allies in the region and that even Turkey, which likes Hamas, couldn’t provide “a single bullet” to the terror group.
“The reality,” Soleimani said, “is that there is no one but Iran.”