People carry Palestinian flags, Iranian flags and Hezbollah flags at Tehran’s Revolution Square throughout an anti-Israel rally on Oct. 18.

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People carry Palestinian flags, Iranian flags and Hezbollah flags at Tehran’s Revolution Square throughout an anti-Israel rally on Oct. 18.

Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto through Getty Images

LONDON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a warning this week that the United States would act “swiftly and decisively” if it got here below assault from Iran or its proxies within the Middle East, amid rising issues of the Israel-Hamas battle spreading.

His warning got here because the White House accused Iran of facilitating attacks on U.S. navy bases in Syria and Iraq within the final week. Questions concerning the extent of Iran’s involvement in Hamas’ Oct. 7 assault on Israel have shone a highlight on Iranian affect within the Middle East and raised main issues concerning the prospect of a wider battle engulfing the area.

The U.S. has stated there may be no direct evidence that Iran was concerned within the Hamas assault in opposition to Israel. However, analysts and regional consultants say there are evident hyperlinks between Iran and the assaults carried out by Hamas.

“Hamas and Iran have a long-standing but not always easy relationship,” says Kim Ghattas, creator of Black Wave, a e-book concerning the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. “Hamas gets funding and weapons from Iran. So whether or not it approved of the Oct. 7 attack, Iran is complicit.”

Ali Barakeh, a senior Hamas official primarily based in Lebanon, told NPR earlier this month that whereas “Iran knows that Hamas fights Israel and offers us support, which we do not deny … we don’t take orders from anyone.”

What is the hyperlink between Iran and Hamas?

Hamas, a Sunni Islamist motion, is an autonomous Palestinian group with navy and political wings. Hamas has dominated greater than 2 million Palestinians within the Gaza Strip since 2007. Gaza has not had elections since Hamas seized power that very same 12 months from the Palestinian Authority, which guidelines the West Bank.

Hamas receives funding and weapons from Iran. The two have had rifts in the past, and don’t all the time agree. Most just lately, they fell out over Syria’s civil battle. Tehran withdrew funding from Hamas when the group selected to face with protesters in opposition to Syria’s chief Bashar Assad, whom Tehran helps. Hamas additionally has different backers, together with Turkey.

Palestinian fighters of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas motion, march in a navy parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 battle with Israel, close to the border within the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2023.

Mahmud Hams/AFP through Getty Images)

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Palestinian fighters of the al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas motion, march in a navy parade to mark the anniversary of the 2014 battle with Israel, close to the border within the central Gaza Strip on July 19, 2023.

Mahmud Hams/AFP through Getty Images)

What is the “axis of resistance”?

Hamas comes below the so-called “axis of resistance,” a multi-pronged community of various forces throughout the area, supported to various levels by Iran.

The time period “axis of resistance” is believed to have emerged in response to President George W. Bush’s use of the time period “axis of evil” — referring to Iran, Iraq and North Korea — in his 2002 State of the Union tackle. There are conflicting reviews about who first coined the term, which is often used by Iranian officers.

The “axis of resistance” is an off-the-cuff, loose-knit alliance that features each Sunni and Shia Muslim teams and governments in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq, with variations and ranging ranges of proximity to at least one one other and to Tehran.

The Iranian regime and its Quds Force, a subset of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard corps, have grown this community extra on the premise of shared resistance to Western powers and Israel.

The axis contains the Lebanese militant group and Shia political social gathering Hezbollah, the Syrian regime and Shia militias in Syria, which Tehran has constructed up and skilled.

Yemen’s Houthi rebels additionally come below the axis. The Houthis have fought a civil battle in opposition to Yemen’s authorities — which is backed by Saudi Arabia — for practically a decade. The Pentagon said last week it had shot down missiles from Yemen that had been probably headed for Israel.

People move a poster that includes Hassan Nasrallah, secretary basic of the Hezbollah social gathering, throughout parliamentary elections in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 15, 2022.

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People move a poster that includes Hassan Nasrallah, secretary basic of the Hezbollah social gathering, throughout parliamentary elections in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 15, 2022.

Francesca Volpi/Bloomberg through Getty Images

The axis additionally includes militias within the influential Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, which had been formed to help fight ISIS in 2014.

In Lebanon, Iran-backed Hezbollah operates each as a Shia Muslim political social gathering and militant group. Hezbollah wields vital energy, particularly in southern Lebanon, and is energetic alongside Israel’s northern border, the place tensions have been building for the reason that Oct. 7 assaults.

Each axis group has a special relationship with Iran. They even have variations with each other. In Gaza, each Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad — a smaller, rival militant group that doesn’t interact within the political course of — are thought-about a part of the alliance. Unlike Hamas, nevertheless, the PIJ receives most of its budget from the Islamic Republic.

“It is important to remember that Hamas is not a proxy of Iran in the way that Hezbollah is,” says Ghattas, who can also be a distinguished fellow on the Columbia Institute of Global Politics and spent twenty years protecting the area as a journalist for the BBC and the Financial Times.

“Hezbollah has become an extension of [the] Iranian Revolutionary Guards Quds Force,” Ghattas says. “Hamas keeps its own separate identity and it has other backers, aside from Iran.”

But regardless of their variations, Ghattas says, their pursuits typically converge, as is the case this month.

“Their agendas still align in an anti-American, anti-Israel worldview, and they come together again when necessary,” Ghattas says.

“Unity of fronts” and extra coordination between Iran-backed teams

According to reports within the worldwide media, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah met senior officers from Hamas in Beirut Wednesday to debate the scenario within the Middle East. An announcement following the assembly said their goal was to attain “a real victory for the resistance in Gaza and Palestine” and halt Israel’s “treacherous and brutal aggression against our oppressed and steadfast people in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Earlier this 12 months, Nasrallah started referring to a “unity of fronts.” The thought was that these disparate teams — all benefiting from Iran’s help — would coordinate of their opposition to Israel.

Experts say there was extra cross-border coordination between these teams lately, even earlier than Nasrallah particularly referred to as for this.

“Over the past couple of years, Iran has been working to coordinate its proxies in what it describes as a ‘unification of fronts,’ surrounding Israel on all fronts,” says Ghattas. “It is a more logistically coordinated operation, rather than each group doing its own thing.”

This contains Hezbollah in Lebanon and different, much less direct proxies, like Hamas in Gaza, Ghattas says.

Smoke billows from Israel following a rocket a from Gaza City on Oct. 7.

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Smoke billows from Israel following a rocket a from Gaza City on Oct. 7.

Ilia Yefimovich/image alliance through Getty Images

Paul Salem, president of the Middle East Institute in Washington, told NPR’s Ailsa Chang, “It’s quite likely that Hezbollah knew of the preplanning [for the Oct. 7 attacks] and probably participated in training and planning with Hamas, and all of them sort of are part of this Iranian proxy force deployment that you have in Lebanon, in Syria, in Yemen, in Iraq and in Gaza as well.”

How the Iran-backed alliance may affect the battle

Mohanad Hage Ali, a Beirut-based senior fellow on the Carnegie Middle East Center, told NPR’s Scott Simon that the “unity of fronts” of Iranian-backed proxy teams is “a kind of NATO for militant groups” within the area, requiring allied organizations to step in and supply navy help ought to some other member teams face an existential risk.

“I would suppose that Hezbollah would find it difficult not to intervene, although it remains a challenge given the cost of the conflict and what it means for Lebanon,” Hage Ali told NPR.

And stopping a broader battle consuming the area equally requires coordination and tight management over the battlefield, Ghattas says.

“More cross-border coordination allows the Iranians to tightly control escalation and deescalation,” she says.