The London-based newspaper "The Times" reported in a special article that it has obtained messages and documents proving that Iran provided no less than $222 million to Hamas between 2014 and 2020, over a span of six years. According to The Times, the Israeli army, which acquired these communications during the Gaza war, presented them exclusively to this newspaper. The Israeli army believes that the messages provide compelling evidence of a complex series of payments demonstrating how the Iranian regime financed Hamas.
One of the messages, written by the military leader of Hamas in Gaza, Marwan Issa, known as Abu al-Barra, to Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the movement in Gaza, details the receipt of at least $222 million from Iran. Following the Israeli attack last month on an area near the Nussairat camp in central Gaza, reports indicated that Marwan Issa had been killed. The United States and Israel confirmed the death of this Hamas leader during the attack. Israel also emphasized that they would kill Yahya Sinwar and he must be considered dead following the attack carried out by Hamas on Israel on October 7.
The first message, written in 2020, documented Iran's payments on a monthly basis. The recorded payments began in July 2014, when Hamas was involved in its previous war with Israel at that time. According to this message, during these six years, Tehran paid a total of $154 million to Hamas. The message specifies how this amount was allocated, indicating that all funds were delivered to Yahya Sinwar in cash, except in one case where the payment was made to a person named Abu al-Abad, believed to be Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas's political bureau residing in the Qatari capital, Doha.
The second message was written in November 2021 and begins with "In the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful," addressed to my dear brother Abu Ibrahim, may God preserve him... Abu Ibrahim appears to be Yahya Sinwar himself, and this message records the details of payments made by the Iranian regime to Hamas following the war that Hamas waged against Israel in the same year, known as the "Battle of the Sword of Jerusalem." After this war, Iran paid Hamas $58 million, and subsequently granted the movement another $10 million in two installments.
According to The Times, these funds are believed to have been sent from Iran to Beirut, where Iranian Revolutionary Guard officers handed them over to Hamas members. In one message, Marwan Issa mentioned Saeed Izadi as Haj Ramadan, and his immediate commander until last week, Mohammad Reza Zahdi, the commander of the Revolutionary Guard in Syria and Lebanon, who was killed in an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus along with six senior Revolutionary Guard officers. The Iranian regime has not yet responded to this attack. According to The Times, the aim of the attack was to show Iran that Israel can no longer hide behind its proxy forces in the region.
