Addressed to a man called Abu Ibrahim, known to the rest of the world as Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, the typed letter is matter of fact. “Attached is a table of payments from Iran between 2014 and 2020,” it states.
Yet what follows in correspondence discovered during the war in Gaza is what Israel’s military believe is compelling evidence of a complex series of payments, which sheds light on the extent of Tehran’s continued funding for the Palestinian fighting group.
The two letters, the second of which was handwritten, were written by the chief of staff of the Hamas fighting wing, Marwan Issa, who signed them as Abu al-Baraa. They appear to detail at least $222 million received from Iran and have been shared exclusively by The Times. Issa is believed to have been killed last month in an Israeli strike on his compound in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
Addressed to a man called Abu Ibrahim, known to the rest of the world as Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas chief in Gaza, the typed letter is matter of fact. “Attached is a table of payments from Iran between 2014 and 2020,” it states.
Yet what follows in correspondence discovered during the war in Gaza is what Israel’s military believe is compelling evidence of a complex series of payments, which sheds light on the extent of Tehran’s continued funding for the Palestinian fighting group.
The two letters, the second of which was handwritten, were written by the chief of staff of the Hamas fighting wing, Marwan Issa, who signed them as Abu al-Baraa. They appear to detail at least $222 million received from Iran and have been shared exclusively by The Times. Issa is believed to have been killed last month in an Israeli strike on his compound in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
A letter from Marwan Issa, chief of staff of the Hamas fighting wing, to Sinwar
Sinwar, Issa and the overall military commander of Hamas, Mohammed Deif, were the masterminds of the surprise attack on Israel six months ago.
The first of the letters dates from 2020 and shows monthly payments from Iran, starting in July 2014, while Hamas was fighting a previous war with Israel. In total, $154 million was transferred during this six-year period. In the comment section of the letter appear allocations, from the total sum, that were handed directly to Sinwar in cash and in one case to an Abu al-Abed, who is believed to be Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political bureau.
Issa signed the letter as Abu al-Baraa
The second, from November 2021, begins: “In the name of Allah the merciful. To my dear brother Abu Ibrahim, Allah protect him. Warm greetings, peace, Allah’s mercy and blessing upon him.” It then details payments from Iran following the war fought that year, which Hamas called Operation Sword of Jerusalem, which is mentioned in the letter.
After the war, Iran transferred the largest single sum, $58 million. Two further sums of $5 million are mentioned as having been received as well as additional expected. The letter also details how most of the money was allocated to “the apparatus” — the fighting wing of Hamas — as well as a smaller sum to the political wing and $2 million directly to Sinwar.
A breakdown of money transfers from Issa to Sinwar
The money is believed to have arrived in Beirut from Iran, in cash, where it was given by officers from Iran’s Republican Guard to their Hamas contacts. Saeed Izadi, who is mentioned by Issa in the letters as Haj Ramadan and was allegedly the source of the money, is head of the Palestinian division office in Iran’s Quds Force, co-ordinating and funding from Beirut operations with Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian militant movements.
Until last week, his direct commander was Brigadier-General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon. Zahedi was the most senior of seven men killed in a suspected Israeli airstrike on April 1 which hit a consular building in Iran’s diplomatic compound in Damascus.
Iran has yet to retaliate for the attack, which Israeli officials privately say was aimed at demonstrating to Tehran that it can no longer hide behind their proxies in the region. Intelligence services in the west and the Middle East believe Iran will retaliate and that Tehran’s dilemma is whether to do so through one of its proxies, as it has in the past, or to launch a rare direct attack on Israeli targets.
After United States intelligence on Wednesday warned that a strike by Iran or its proxies was imminent, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said his country was prepared “defensively and offensively” for “scenarios involving challenges in other sectors”.
Israeli intelligence officers believe Zahedi would have passed the money on to Saleh al-Arouri, the Hamas military leader in Beirut who was assassinated in another Israeli strike in January during a meeting in the Dahya neighbourhood, a US Treasury Department stronghold. From Beirut, the funds would be transferred to Gaza through a network of money-changers using either crypto-currency accounts or a system of credits to traders in Gaza, who would then pass the money over to Issa or his representatives.
One of the main Lebanese money-changers allegedly involved in the transfers, Mohammad Surur, was found dead with several gunshots to his legs this week in a small town near Beirut. Surur, who was known to have close ties to Hezbollah, was designated by the US Treasury Department for being involved in funding terrorism. More money-changers have been designated in recent months.
Hamas is considered a proxy of Iran but is relatively independent in comparison to Hezbollah, which was founded by Iranian agents and shares their Shia faith, or Palestine Islamic Jihad, which is fully funded and directed by Tehran. Israeli intelligence believes Iran was not informed in advance of the surprise attack and massacre in Israel on October 7.
The founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, who was a disciple of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood movement, had ties with the Iranians and even visited the previous Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, in Tehran, preferred not to receive Iranian funding. Hamas leaders since Yassin have changed tack, accepting hundreds of millions of dollars from Iran.
In that time, the alliance has had ups and downs. For example, the former head of the political bureau, Khaled Mashal, decided in 2012 to close the Hamas headquarters in Damascus and distance Hamas from the Iranians, following their backing of the bloody suppression of the uprisings against the Assad regime, in which many members of the local Muslim Brotherhood were murdered.
For years there remained deep disagreements over whether to re-establish ties with Iran and Syria, but as the documents captured by the Israelis seem to prove, by 2014, payments had resumed.
This is almost certainly connected to the fact that in the summer of 2014, Hamas fought a seven-week war against Israel from Gaza, Operation Protective Edge. The Iranian payments are believed to be “encouragements” for Hamas to continue fighting Israel.
In 2017 and 2018, the breakdown prepared by Issa shows, there were no payments “at our request”, which could be connected to the fact that Hamas was concentrating at the time on trying to rebuild Gaza rather than directly confront Israel. It may also reflect the lingering differences among senior Hamas members regarding the group’s ties with Iran.
The bump in payments after the 12-day war in 2021 would indicate Iranian appreciation and encouragement. Israeli intelligence believes the payments continued at least until the October 7 attack and helped finance the arsenal of rockets and weapons used in it.

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