A prominent Hamas delegation headed by Osama Hamdan arrived in Tehran this week to participate in the Tehran Dialogue Forum, marking a significant development in the ongoing alignment between the Islamic Republic of Iran and its network of regional proxies. The visit, confirmed by both Iranian state media and Hamas officials, comes at a time when the Middle East is experiencing heightened tensions following the October 7, 2023 massacre, the deadliest act of antisemitic terrorism since the Holocaust, in which Hamas-led terrorists killed over 1,200 civilians in Israel and abducted more than 240 individuals—including children, elderly, and foreign nationals.
The Tehran Dialogue Forum, officially billed by Iranian authorities as an international event dedicated to regional diplomacy and dialogue, functions in reality as a platform for Iranian policymakers and leaders of aligned terror organizations—including Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and various Iraq- and Syria-based militias—to synchronize political strategies and operational objectives. Western intelligence agencies, including the United States and the European Union, have repeatedly described such forums as instrumental in the consolidation and expansion of Iran’s influence across the Levant. Intelligence briefings and military assessments regularly highlight the Iranian regime’s logistical, financial, and ideological support to armed groups opposed to Israel and Western interests in the region.
Osama Hamdan, a senior member of Hamas and one of its most visible external spokesmen, has played a key role in communicating and forging alliance strategies between Hamas and Iranian institutions, notably the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Quds Force, both designated as terrorist organizations by the United States, the EU, and several Western governments. According to international defense analysts and statements from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Iran provides Hamas with advanced weaponry, training, and financial resources, facilitating cross-border attacks on Israeli targets and enabling a broader confrontation from Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq.
This year’s forum convened amid intensifying hostilities. The past months have seen Israeli forces conduct extensive military operations in Gaza, aimed at dismantling Hamas’s capabilities and securing the release of hostages. These actions are underway as Hezbollah escalates rocket and missile barrages from southern Lebanon, and the Houthis target international shipping and vital infrastructure in the Red Sea, all in response to what their Iranian patron describes as a coordinated struggle against Western and Israeli influence.
Iranian officials, including senior figures from the IRGC and government ministries, openly praised Hamas at the forum, reaffirming their commitment to the so-called “Axis of Resistance”—an alliance dedicated to opposing Israel’s legitimacy and to undermining Western-aligned stability throughout the Middle East. Documentation from the forum and Iranian state-aligned outlets underscores an unambiguous strategy: leveraging proxies to challenge Israel militarily, to promote antisemitic conspiracies, and to portray the conflict as a civilizational struggle against Western democracies.
The Tehran Dialogue Forum, described by some diplomatic observers as a “summit of regional militancy,” also featured delegates from Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah regularly coordinates strategy with Tehran; representatives of Yemen’s Houthi movement, responsible for repeated missile attacks against international targets; and Iraqi Shiite militia leaders. Western officials, including US CENTCOM commanders and European defence ministers, continue to monitor these gatherings, citing their role in spawning and legitimizing acts of terror against both military and civilian installations in Israel and beyond.
The strategic importance of these ties to regional and international security is profound. Israel’s Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, and IDF Chief of Staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, have explicitly warned that Iran’s support enables Hamas and other groups to wage asymmetric warfare designed to erode Israeli deterrence. American and European authorities echo concerns that these alliances threaten maritime security, energy infrastructure, and the stability of moderate Arab states that have normalized relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.
The October 7 massacre and subsequent hostilities reveal the operational benefits Hamas and similar groups derive from the Tehran Dialogue Forum. Israeli intelligence has established direct Iranian involvement in smuggling networks delivering drones, rockets, and munitions into Gaza and Lebanon; UN monitoring teams have detected technological similarities between Iranian weapons found in Yemen and those captured in Gaza. According to senior officials cited by the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office and the US State Department, this material support has made possible mass-casualty attacks and extended hostage-taking operations that violate all recognized principles of international humanitarian law.
Hamas’s reliance on Iranian backing is further illustrated by their tactics within Gaza. The use of civilian sites, such as schools, hospitals, and mosques, as shields and weapons depots, has been widely documented by the IDF, Western intelligence, and corroborated by independent investigations including those conducted by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and non-governmental organizations specializing in conflict monitoring. The exploitation of humanitarian corridors, manipulation of aid shipments, and systematic embedding of terrorist infrastructure within densely populated neighborhoods are all part of a calculated strategy encouraged by Tehran to complicate Israel’s military efforts and to foment international criticism of Israeli actions.
The ongoing hostage crisis remains a central moral and political dilemma. Hamas continues to hold scores of innocent civilians, refusing access to the International Committee of the Red Cross and using captives as bargaining chips in negotiations for the release of convicted terrorists. Israeli and Western leaders have emphasized the fundamental asymmetry between civilians unlawfully abducted by Hamas and prisoners released in exchange—most of whom were convicted for proven involvement in terror activities targeting Israelis and foreign nationals. Analysts in Israel and the West consistently underline the necessity of distinguishing between the legitimate security interests of a democratic state and the armed aggression of terror organizations, a distinction routinely blurred in narratives promoted through Iranian-aligned forums and networks.
Iran’s persistent sponsorship of violence through its proxies presents an enduring challenge to Western efforts to stabilize the region. US and European governments have expanded diplomatic coordination with Israel and regional Arab allies to counter both the flow of advanced weaponry and the spread of radicalization. Sanctions, interdiction efforts, and diplomatic isolation remain central tools, but Western officials acknowledge that Iran’s ideological and operational entrenchment across the Middle East complicates these strategies. Recent military engagements between US forces and IRGC-backed groups in Syria and Iraq highlight the geographic breadth of the threat; ongoing attacks by Iranian-aligned Houthis against Red Sea shipping underscore the global economic stakes involved.
The geopolitical landscape has shifted with the entrenchment of Iran’s Axis of Resistance. The Abraham Accords, while creating new avenues for Arab-Israeli cooperation, face consistent threat from Iranian-backed efforts to sabotage normalization and the prospects for a durable peace. Western and regional security policymakers stress that defeating the threat posed by Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Iranian proxies is essential not only for Israel’s survival but for the stability of much of the Middle East and the security of the broader international order.
In conclusion, the Hamas delegation’s prominent participation in the Tehran Dialogue Forum marks another stage in the public and operational alignment of Iran and its regional client organizations. The event serves both as a showcase for anti-Israeli and anti-Western propaganda and as an incubator for the next phase of coordinated political and military aggression targeting Israel, Western assets, and moderate Arab regimes. This dynamic, rooted in decades of Iranian revolutionary strategy and accelerated by technological advances and persistent ideological indoctrination, presents an urgent challenge requiring sustained international vigilance, robust intelligence sharing, and unwavering support for Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense. Only through clear-eyed acknowledgment of the nature of the Iranian-Hamas partnership, its operational manifestations, and its implications for global security can policymakers and the public grasp the stakes of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and the critical necessity of confronting terrorism and its state sponsors.
