Letters written by Hamas boss reveal Iran paid group £200million (2024)

Letters exchanged by Hamas leaders have revealed how Iran appears to have awarded at least £200 million to the Palestinian militant group since 2014.

One document, seemingly written in 2020 by a top official in Hamas' armed wing, Marwan Issa (Abu Baraa), and addressed to the group's leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar(Abu Ibrahim), showed a table of payments totalling $154 million from the Islamic Republic to Hamas coffers.

A second handwritten letter in November 2021 goes on to show the receipt of at least another $68 million and references to further expected payments.

The Israelimilitary, whichallegedly uncovered the letters amid their operations in Gaza, told The Times they believe the documents prove Iran's systematic funding of the Hamas group prior to the October 7 attacks which prompted the outbreak of war.

They claim the money was transferred into Hamas accounts in Gaza via a complex system that sees members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds force (IRGC-QF) deliver huge sums of cash to Hamas contacts in Lebanon.

Once in Beirut, the money is squirrelled across the border by a network of money-changers using shell companies, crypto-currency, shipping transactions and various credit schemes to funnel the money to Hamas chiefs.

The documents detail how much of the money was paid directly to several top Hamas officials including Issa and Sinwar, as well as Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and military commander Mohammed Deif, all of whom were implicated in planning the October 7 attacks on Israeli civilians.

But Israel and the US have targeted the Hamas elite and have also worked to dismantle the networks that continue to fund the Palestinian group.

Issa is believed to have died in an Israeli airstrike on March 11, according to the IDF and USNational Security Advisor Jake Sullivan.

And though Haniyeh is sheltering from the IDF's bombs in Qatar, three of his sons and several of his grandchildren are said to have been killedin a strike in Gaza earlier this week.

Meanwhile, Saleh al-Arouri, another Hamas official marshalling the group from Beirut who was thought to be a key link in the money-changing chain, was killed in a drone strike in January.

Then on April 1, an Israeli strike on an Iranian consulate building in Damascus, Syria, killed 13 people, including Quds force generalsMohammad Reza Zahedi andMohammad Hadi Hajriahimi.

Zahedi is thought to have worked with al-Arouri to deliver IRGC funds to money-changers in Lebanon.

Mohammad Surur, a man said to be connected to Hezbollah facilitating payments to Hamas, was found dead near the Lebanese capital earlier this week.

For its part, the US has launched a battery of sanctions designed to cripple the money-changing network Hamas relies on to receive payments from Iran.

Financial exchanges in Gaza, an Iraqi airline and backers of Iranian-linked militias in Iraq were just some of the entities subject to economic freezes in measures announced in January by the US Treasury.

'Sanctions are just one of the many levers at our disposal when it comes to holding Iran and some of its proxies accountable,' State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told a news briefing.

The moves would have 'tangible impacts' on groups Washington blames for destabilising the Middle East, Patel said.

For example, he said, the US hoped blacklisting Iraq's Fly Baghdad airline and its chief executive would 'disrupt' the airline's alleged role in carrying supplies and personnel into Syria for the Quds Force.

The revelation comes as tensions between Iran and Israel continue to escalate, with the prospect of tit-for-tat strikes spiralling into a wider conflict looking increasingly likely.

The Islamic Republic vowed revenge on what it calls the 'evil Zionist regime' after the lethal strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that killed General Zahedi.

Iran'sSupreme Leader Ali Khamenei vowed retribution in the wake of the attack, to whichTel-Aviv - yet to take responsibility for the strike on Damascus - retorted swiftly.

Foreign minister Israel Katz declared bluntly: 'If Iran attacks from its territory, Israel will respond and attack in Iran' - the latest step in a venomous war of words that threatens to spill over.

The warning was quickly followed by theIsraeli strike in Gaza that reportedly killed Hamas leaderIsmail Haniyeh's three sons.

Professor Gerald Steinberg, an expert in conflict management and founder of Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, said a potential war between Iran and Israel would be both futile and devastating.

'They are on the verge of a confrontation similar to the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis between Washington and Moscow. Both countries can do massive damage to the other, but neither can 'win',' he said.

Wyn Bowen, Professor of International Security at King's College London's Department of War Studies, told MailOnline that it is unlikely Iran will seek to directly attack targets on Israelisoil, lest it risk an uncontrollable military response from Israel and its chief ally, the US.

But he also cautioned 'the Iranian leadership is under significant pressure to respond robustly' to the consulate attack, suggesting that a direct conflict, albeit unlikely, must be considered.