Israel has killed a senior Iranian commander of the force that oversees and supports proxy militias around the Middle East, including the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, an Israeli military statement said on Saturday.
The Israeli defense ministry identified the commander as Mohammed Said Izadi. He was a longtime target of Israeli intelligence who oversaw Iran’s ties to groups like Hamas, which led the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that ignited the war in Gaza, according to the military.
Mr. Izadi was one of the few people who knew in advance about Hamas’s plan to launch the surprise attack, The New York Times reported last year.
Israeli officials said Mr. Izadi led the Palestinian affairs branch in the Quds Force, the arm of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps responsible for foreign operations. Israel said it had struck an apartment where Mr. Izadi was staying in central Iran overnight between Friday and Saturday.
There was no immediate comment from Iran.
Iran has long backed a network of proxy militias across the Middle East in an attempt to extend its power and influence across the region and menace its enemy, Israel. They include Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis, who control parts of Yemen.
In 2019, the United States imposed sanctions on Mr. Izadi, saying he had provided millions of dollars to Hamas. Britain did the same four years later to counter what it called “unprecedented threats from the Iranian regime.”
The Times reported that in August 2023, Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas leader in Gaza, said in a closed-door meeting of the group’s leadership that he had spoken to Mr. Izadi the previous month to outline its plan to launch a huge assault on Israel, according to internal minutes of the group’s leadership meetings.
Mr. al-Hayya said he had told Mr. Izadi that Hamas would need help with striking sensitive sites during “the first hour” of the attack. According to the documents, Mr. Izadi said that Hezbollah and Iran welcomed the plan in principle, but that they needed time “to prepare the environment.”
After the war in Gaza began, Mr. Izadi remained in direct contact with Hamas’s top leadership and sought to aid them by transferring equipment and funds into the territory, according to two Israeli defense officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Last year, as Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon intensified, Mr. Izadi left his longtime base in that country for Iran.
He eventually wound up in a safe house belonging to the Revolutionary Guards military force in the city of Qum, the two officials said — the same apartment where he was killed overnight.
Ronen Bergman is a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine, based in Tel Aviv.
Aaron Boxerman is a Times reporter covering Israel and Gaza. He is based in Jerusalem.
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