October 7 and Iran: The Hidden Hand Behind Hamas

Introduction: The Deadliest Day for Jews Since the Holocaust

On October 7, 2023, approximately 3,000 Hamas fighters breached Israel’s southern border at dawn. In the hours that followed, they murdered over 1,200 people — including women, children, the elderly, and foreign workers. They took roughly 250 hostages into Gaza. They committed acts of sexual violence, burned families alive in their homes, and massacred 364 young people at a music festival.

It was the deadliest day for Jewish people since the Holocaust.

The world recoiled. But within hours, a question emerged that would dominate intelligence analysis for months: What was Iran’s role?

Did Tehran plan the attack? Did they know it was coming? Did they give the green light? Or did Hamas act independently — with weapons Iran had provided but on a timeline Tehran didn’t control?

The answer matters — not just for geopolitics, but for understanding how Iran’s decades-long proxy strategy operates. And for Christians, it matters because October 7 didn’t happen in a vacuum. It happened in the land God gave to Abraham. It happened to the people God chose. And the forces behind it connect to a prophetic pattern that stretches back to Ezekiel.

The Infrastructure of October 7

Before asking whether Iran knew about October 7, we need to ask a more fundamental question: Who built the military capability that made it possible?

Decades of Investment

Iran’s investment in Hamas’s military wing spans decades:

Weapons technology. Iran supplied Hamas with the know-how and components to build rockets — from the crude Qassam rockets of the early 2000s to the more sophisticated M-75s and Fajr-5s that could reach Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. By 2023, Hamas possessed an estimated 10,000-15,000 rockets.

Tunnel infrastructure. Iran helped fund and engineer Hamas’s tunnel network — the underground labyrinth that became both a military asset and a hostage prison. The network extended dozens of miles beneath Gaza and included command centers, weapons storage, and cross-border infiltration tunnels.

Training. Hamas fighters received training from the IRGC Quds Force and Hezbollah, both in Iran and in Lebanon. Training covered military tactics, weapons systems, intelligence gathering, and urban warfare.

Funding. U.S. and Israeli officials estimated Iran provided Hamas approximately $70-100 million per year in the years leading up to October 7. This funded weapons manufacturing, tunnel construction, fighter salaries, and operational planning.

The bottom line: Even if Iran did not order the specific attack on October 7, it built the machine that executed it. Without three decades of Iranian investment, Hamas would not have had the rockets, tunnels, training, or organizational capacity to carry out an operation of that scale and sophistication.

The Foreknowledge Question

What U.S. Intelligence Says

In February 2024, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) assessed that “Iranian leaders did not orchestrate nor had foreknowledge of” the October 7 attack. The U.S. intelligence community assessed early on that Iran was “surprised” by the timing and scale.

This assessment was consistent with the CIA’s long-standing view that Iran’s proxy relationships involve strategic direction but not tactical control — Tehran sets the objectives, provides resources, but allows proxies operational autonomy.

What Israeli Evidence Suggests

However, this assessment was complicated by evidence recovered from the battlefield.

Documents seized by the Israeli military and verified by The New York Times indicated a more direct connection:

Senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya reportedly discussed the attack plan with IRGC commander Mohammed Said Izadi in July 2023 — three months before October 7.
Izadi reportedly responded that “Hezbollah and Iran welcomed the plan in principle, but that they needed time to prepare the environment.”
The “preparation” may explain Hezbollah’s readiness to open a second front on Israel’s northern border immediately after October 7 — suggesting coordination, if not operational direction.

Iran’s Mission to the United Nations denied the claims, calling them “devoid of credence and comes from fabricated documents.”

The Distinction That Matters

Intelligence analysts draw a critical distinction:

Operational foreknowledge — knowing the date, time, and specific targets — is different from strategic approval — knowing that a major operation was being planned and signaling support for its general direction.

The evidence suggests that Iran may have known Hamas was planning something big and endorsed the concept without directing the specifics. This is consistent with how Iran’s proxy model works: the Quds Force empowers local actors to pursue shared strategic objectives while maintaining plausible deniability.

This is the pattern of an empire that fights through proxies precisely so it never has to take direct responsibility.

Soleimani’s Long Shadow

October 7 cannot be understood without understanding Qasem Soleimani.

From 1998 until his assassination by a U.S. drone strike on January 3, 2020, Soleimani commanded the IRGC Quds Force and orchestrated Iran’s entire proxy network. He was the architect of what analysts call the “ring of fire” strategy: surround Israel with hostile forces on every border — Hezbollah to the north, Hamas to the south, militias to the east — so that any Israeli action against Iran would trigger a multi-front war Israel couldn’t afford.

Soleimani built the relationships. He personally visited Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. He coordinated between groups that otherwise had little reason to cooperate. He ensured that Hamas — a Sunni organization — would accept Shia Iran’s support despite the theological divide.

The U.S. Treasury designated Soleimani for:
– Assisting Syria’s intelligence directorate in violently suppressing protesters (May 2011)
– Supervising a plot to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States on American soil (October 2011)

Declassified U.S. Central Command documents revealed that militants under Soleimani’s command killed more than 500 U.S. service members in Iraq between 2005 and 2011.

Soleimani was killed in January 2020. October 7 happened in October 2023.

The three-year gap raises a question: Did the attack happen because of Soleimani’s planning — a long-term operation he set in motion before his death? Or did it happen despite his absence — a Hamas decision emboldened by the infrastructure he built but no longer constrained by his strategic discipline?

The truth is probably both. Soleimani built the machine. Hamas eventually used it on its own terms.

The Multi-Front Activation

What makes October 7 most significant in the Iranian proxy context is what happened around it:

Hezbollah opened a second front within hours, launching rockets at northern Israel and sustaining daily attacks for over a year. This was not spontaneous — it required planning, positioning, and a decision at the highest levels of Hezbollah (and by extension, Tehran).

The Houthis in Yemen began attacking international shipping in the Red Sea in November 2023, explicitly citing solidarity with Gaza. They launched ballistic missiles and drones at Israel — 1,500+ miles from Yemen. This required Iranian-supplied weapons and targeting assistance.

Iraqi Shia militias launched dozens of attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria, killing three American soldiers at Tower 22 in Jordan in January 2024.

This was the multi-front activation that Soleimani had designed and Iran had rehearsed. Whether or not Tehran ordered October 7, the system-wide response that followed was a coordinated strategy that only the IRGC could have orchestrated.

The Consequences

For Hamas

Gaza was devastated. Israel launched its most intense military campaign since 1948, killing thousands and destroying Hamas’s military infrastructure. Senior Hamas leaders were killed, including the October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar. Hamas’s capacity as a military force was severely degraded.

For Hezbollah

Israel turned north after stabilizing Gaza. In September-October 2024, Israel killed Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah — the most powerful non-state actor in the Middle East — along with much of Hezbollah’s senior leadership. The organization suffered its worst losses since its founding in 1982.

For Iran

The Congressional Research Service noted that in 2024, “Iranian officials and pundits have engaged in what appear to be unprecedentedly open discussions on the subject of possible nuclear weapons development” — suggesting that the destruction of Iran’s proxy buffer has increased pressure on Iran to develop its own deterrent.

Iran attacked Israel directly for the first time in April 2024 — launching over 300 missiles and drones — and again in October 2024. Both attacks were largely intercepted, but they crossed a threshold: Iran, having lost the ability to fight through proxies alone, began fighting directly.

For the Region

The post-October 7 Middle East is fundamentally different. Iran’s “ring of fire” has been broken — at enormous cost. The Abrahamic Accords normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states. But the underlying conflict between Iran and Israel has intensified, not resolved.

Biblical Perspective: Violence, Sovereignty, and the Land

For Christians, October 7 demands more than political analysis. It demands theological reflection.

The Land

October 7 happened in the land God promised to Abraham:

“To your offspring I will give this land.” (Genesis 12:7)

The kibbutzim attacked — Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz — sit near the ancient territory of the Philistines, in the region the Bible calls the Negev. The Re’im music festival was near the ancient site of Gerar, where Abraham himself sojourned (Genesis 20:1).

This land has been contested since Genesis. It was contested when the Philistines fought Israel. When Babylon destroyed Jerusalem. When Rome razed the temple. And it is contested now.

The People

The Jewish people — despite 2,000 years of exile, persecution, pogroms, and the Holocaust — returned to this land. Their survival is itself a theological statement: God preserves the people through whom He chose to reveal Himself, bless the nations, and send the Messiah.

An attack designed to massacre Jews in the land of Israel is not merely an act of terrorism. It is an assault on God’s covenant promises.

The Sovereignty

And yet — God was not absent on October 7. He was not surprised. He was not overwhelmed.

This is the hardest part of the Christian response: holding together the reality of horrific evil with the confession that God remains sovereign. The same tension that the book of Job holds. The same tension that the Psalms express. The same tension that Jesus embodied when He wept at Lazarus’s tomb and then called him out of it.

God’s sovereignty does not mean He causes evil. It means He is not defeated by it.

“You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20)

October 7 was evil. The response — the exposure of Hamas’s brutality, the global reckoning with Iran’s proxy strategy, the unprecedented Israeli-Arab cooperation, the questions being asked about Iran’s future — these are threads in a larger pattern that only God can see fully.

Conclusion: The Hidden Hand and the Sovereign One

Iran’s hidden hand behind Hamas built the infrastructure of October 7. Whether Tehran knew the date or not, it spent decades ensuring that an attack of this magnitude was possible.

But there is another hidden hand. One that is not hidden by cowardice or plausible deniability, but by sovereignty and patience.

The God who declared the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10) is not scrambling to respond to events in the Middle East. He is not surprised by Iran’s proxy empire. He is not threatened by Hezbollah’s rockets or Hamas’s tunnels.

He is working — as He always has — through the chaos of human evil to accomplish His purposes. Purposes that include judgment on wickedness. Protection of His people. And ultimately, the establishment of a kingdom where no proxy empire, no terror network, and no hidden hand will ever threaten His children again.

“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

Until that day, we watch. We pray. And we trust the Sovereign One who holds all hidden hands in His.

Sources

Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2024 Annual Threat Assessment.
Office of the Director of National Intelligence, 2025 Annual Threat Assessment.
Congressional Research Service, Iran: Background and U.S. Policy, Updated May 2025.
Congressional Research Service, Israel and Hamas Conflict In Brief, Updated August 2024.
U.S. Department of the Treasury, Treasury Sanctions Iranian IRGC-QF and Hizballah Financial Network, October 2023.
Iran Watch, Qasem Soleimani Profile.
U.S. House of Representatives, State Sponsors of Terrorism: An Examination of Iran’s Global Terrorism Network, Congressional Testimony, October 25, 2023.