Sudden Flux of Hamas-Hezbollah Meetings Stoke Mystery

Leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah have been meeting in a flurry over the past several weeks in a sign the groups may be coordinating more closely over the course of the Israel-Hamas war.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi held phone calls with the leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad just after the Oct.7 attack on Israel. Later that month, the leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, met with Saleh al-Arouri, a senior Hamas leader, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhleh. The parties agreed on next steps they each should take at the time, a joint statement said, raising concerns about the groups opening up a new chapter of broader coordination.

Hamas and Hezbollah are part of what Iran calls the “Axis of Resistance,” an interwoven set of both Sunni and Shia Muslim groups which have their own relationship with Iran and which share a main driving interest: working against Israel and the United States. Both groups get funding and training from Iran—and speculation about how far Iran’s hands reach into Hamas’ planning and plotting have been swirling since Oct. 7. But the two groups’ alignment isn’t necessarily cut-and-dried.

“Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran… it’s a marriage of convenience,” Doug London, a former CIA chief of station who served throughout the Middle East and a CIA subject matter expert on Iran and counterterrorism, told The Daily Beast.

Hamas, a Sunni Muslim group, has said it is coordinating closely with Hezbollah on the war. Lebanese Hezbollah began launching attacks against Israel from the north just after Oct. 7, in what appeared to be coordinated steps. But the groups have had differences over the years. In the past decade, Hamas and Hezbollah backed opposite sides in the Syrian war. Hamas had opposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown—in a significant break from Iran and Hezbollah’s approach to the war.

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But the tide appears to be shifting: Last year, Hamas announced it was restoring its ties with Syria, paving the way for further cooperation.

”There are ideological differences, political differences that arise, but they have since moved past that to work the common objective of taking the fight to Israel in what is known as the Axis of Resistance,” Firas Maksad, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and adjunct professor at George Washington University, told The Daily Beast.

Those longstanding differences are key to understanding the ways in which the groups are interwoven today—and why they might hesitate to fully dive into action for each other, said Maksad.

“We generally kind of refer to this Axis of Resistance with a broad brush as if they’re all one thing. And clearly, they’re not,” he said. “There’s clearly some very important differences there although they do all enjoy a level of relationship, and similar objectives.”

Detachment

Even with indications the groups have been growing closer in recent years, their coordination against Israel might not be perfectly aligned.

The groups have the capabilities to coordinate more closely, which could lead to aggressive and broader escalation across the board, particularly from Hezbollah, said London, author of The Recruiter: Spying and the Lost Art of American Intelligence. But so far, that’s not happening.

“Had this really been an Iranian master plan, then Iran would have needed to make a choice that if they’re going to fully exploit a planned Hamas attack, that this was now the time to achieve its aspirational goal, the destruction of Israel, which is what it claims to be its goal,” London said. “It would have coordinated the Hamas attacks with Hezbollah attacks, the PIJ, and its own IRGC forces in Syria. But that didn’t happen.”

Still, Iranian proxies are indeed taking action against the West. Hezbollah and Israel continue to skirmish. Just Wednesday, Israel detected launches from inside Lebanon, and IDF tanks and fighter jets hit Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the IDF said in an alert.

Iran-backed Houthi rebels—who are also tied into the so-called “Axis of Resistance”—have been launching attacks in the Red Sea in recent days as well, putting Western vessels at risk and forcing the U.S. military and other militaries to respond.

But if Iran were really in on planning and interested in going full speed ahead with its so-called Axis of Resistance, it would likely be leveraging Hezbollah, which has significant firepower, said London.

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“I think Hamas, unlike Hezbollah, maintains a degree of independence from Iran concerning its military operations and the Iranians are not yet ready to fully commit to Hamas along the lines of a mutual defense pact, which requires Tehran to fully come to its aid in some climatic struggles with Israel, and by extension, the United States. Because they’re clearly not doing that,” London said. “If anything, they’re restraining Hezbollah because they don’t want to see Hezbollah degraded as a deterrent against Israel and the United States.”

For now, the groups may not see closer coordination in attacks beyond facilitation, since Iran has a vested interest in preserving Hezbollah and avoiding all-out war.

“From an Iran perspective, they’ve invested tens of billions of dollars, equipping, arming, and training Hezbollah over the past 40 years. It really is the regime’s line of deterrence, line of defense,” Maksad said, adding that Iran “doesn’t want to see Hezbollah spent in this side war for Hamas. It would much rather preserve Hezbollah in defense of the regime.”

Iran may be relying on third parties in order to avoid falling into another war, in part because of domestic pressures to avoid war, said Maksad.

“Iran and Hezbollah do not have an interest in seeing the situation devolve into an all-out war with Israel. Iran has no interest in being directly dragged into this war and prefers asymmetric gray zone warfare using third parties,” Maksad said.

Tension

Although Hamas has touted close ties with Hezbollah in the fight against Israel, tensions remain, particularly because Hamas wants more support for its cause.

A Hamas leader, Khaled Mashal, has even hinted in public statements that Hamas wants Hezbollah to step up.

“There is no doubt that if Hezbollah joins in, it would make a real difference. We hope that this happens, but the decision is theirs,” Mashal said in October.

“They are all smiles, especially for the cameras, and hug and kiss like brothers, but I don’t think it's totally free of tensions, and I think there are occasionally some expectations of one party or the other that are not met,” London said.

For now, Iran and Hezbollah may be doing the bare minimum to participate and help in the Axis of Resistance.

And while Iran has been careful to preserve its firebrand Hezbollah, its current path of engagement may still spark confrontations that could spill over into broader war, said London.

“Iran has not been reckless. They push the envelope, but they’ve not been reckless. Unfortunately, they don’t always understand U.S. red lines and might misread Washington’s restraint and intensify its aggression,” London said.

“It would take but one of the many missiles and drones Iran-backed proxies have used in attacking U.S. ships and basses to slip through and inflict significant casualties for the American public to force the White House’s hand in a major escalation that would leave it and Tehran caught in a spiral towards war neither party might be able to stop.”