Iran Is Recruiting Militant Allies to Launch Attacks Against Israel

The long shadow war between Iran and Israel is moving into an unpredictable new phase after one of the Islamic Republic’s most powerful military commanders began rallying allies across the Middle East to launch a fresh wave of attacks on Israeli targets.

People familiar with the discussions said Esmail Qaani, who leads the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force, has held a series of clandestine meetings with militant leaders across the region in recent weeks, including some operating in Syria and Iraq.

The Quds Force chief was in Lebanon last week, where he met with the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad at the Iranian embassy in Beirut, the people said. Around the same time, militants in southern Lebanon fired a barrage of rockets at Israel, the largest such attack since the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

The details of the rocket attack were finalized in Gen. Qaani’s meetings in Beirut, including with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his deputy Saleh al-Arouri and Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, the people said.  

Rockets were also fired at Israel from Gaza and Syria, and Israel responded by launching airstrikes against what it said were militant targets in those areas. Israel now fears fresh onslaughts on multiple fronts, and the country’s military said it has reinforced its Iron Dome air-defense over the past week over the growing tension.

Israel has cause for concern. Gen. Qaani’s effort to unite Tehran’s allies is a sharp escalation in the undeclared war between Iran and Israel after Israel carried out hundreds of attacks targeting Iran and its proxies across the Middle East.

It also reflects the growing influence of Gen. Qaani, who succeeded Qassem Soleimani, the charismatic Quds Force leader who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Baghdad in 2020. Gen. Qaani has generally played a quieter, less visible role than his predecessor. But his recent work marshaling Hezbollah, Hamas and others marks a growing threat to Israel—and a challenge for the U.S. at a time when other powers such as China and Russia are attempting to play larger roles in the Middle East.

Among Tehran’s chief objectives is to prevent its neighbors from establishing diplomatic ties with Israel. Over the past two years, Iran has publicly warned them against participating in U.S.-backed efforts to create a regional alliance to isolate Tehran. Saudi Arabia’s surprise agreement to renew diplomatic ties with Iran was a significant blow to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s main foreign policy goal of normalizing relations with Riyadh—and a reminder that the Islamic Republic remains a potent force in the region, as the U.S. has frequently warned.

“Make no mistake,” President Biden said in late March after the U.S. carried out a series of airstrikes on Iran-backed militants in Syria who Washington said were responsible for a drone strike that killed a U.S. contractor. “The United States does not—does not—seek conflict with Iran. But be prepared for us to forcefully protect our people.”

While a fragile calm has largely held on Israel’s borders since the latest exchange of fire, Israeli forces remain on high alert for further cross border attacks. Friday marked an annual pro-Palestinian event, Quds Day—first initiated in 1979 by the leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who declared the liberation of Jerusalem a religious duty for all Muslims, and which is observed on the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Tensions are high on Quds Day every year, but this year Jews and Muslims celebrate overlapping holidays—the Passover festival and Ramadan—with thousands of people congregating in the Old City of Jerusalem, a flashpoint where Muslims gather at the Al Aqsa mosque and Jews worship at the Western Wall.

Then there is growing military confrontation between Iran and Israel.

Iranian officials have said recent Israeli strikes in Syria killed several IRGC military advisers. Iran often avoids publicly blaming Israel for attacks that kill its personnel in Syria and at home, as that would put pressure on Tehran to retaliate. This time was different; among those killed was also a close adviser to the IRGC leadership, the people said.

The Iranian delegation at the United Nations didn’t respond to a request to comment.

Gen. Qaani, now 65 years old, is a veteran commander who fought in the Iran-Iraq war and played a crucial role in Syria’s civil war, where he recruited Shia militias to help prop up President Bashar al-Assad.

Since taking over the Quds Force in 2020, Gen. Qaani has tried to advance its regional ambitions, strengthening the network of allies that largely rely on support from Tehran. Gen. Soleimani had previously spearheaded a successful campaign to expand Iran’s military influence across the Middle East, intervening in the Syrian civil war and backing Houthi rebels in the long-running Yemen conflict.

In late March, during the early days of Ramadan, Gen. Qaani held meetings in Syria with members of Palestinian militant groups to discuss a possible coordinated attack on Israel, according to people familiar with the matter. He told attendees that Iran had obtained information about Israel’s plans for operations against members of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Syria and Lebanon, according to the people.

Gen. Qaani urged them to take action quickly, these people said, saying that Iran would provide the necessary tools to carry out attacks to deter Israel from making its own strikes, they said. Iran has regularly sent drones and missiles through Mediterranean ports and by land via Iraq to its allies in the region.

On April 3, IRGC advisers landed in Beirut to plan for a strike on Israel, according to people familiar with the matter.

Gen. Qaani said it was important to attack Israeli targets within days in response to Israeli strikes that had killed Iranian advisers in Syria, the people said.

Neither Hezbollah nor Hamas claimed responsibility for last week’s rocket fire at Israel. Mr. Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, said last Thursday during a rare publicly announced visit to Beirut that his group wouldn’t “stand with its hands tied in the face of this wanton aggression,” referring to an Israeli police raid at the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem the day before.

Israeli leaders blamed Palestinian militants such as Hamas for the attack from Lebanon and emphasized that they were focusing their firepower on them, and not Hezbollah, a message intended at the time to prevent the fighting from spreading. Israel’s military initially said Hezbollah, which controls the area in southern Lebanon from which the rockets were fired, likely knew beforehand about the attack, though the Israeli security establishment believes Mr. Nasrallah and the Hezbollah leadership didn’t have prior knowledge of the planned rocket attack.

Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli national security adviser, said Iran was seeking to spur allies like Hezbollah and Hamas “to act more boldly” in the face of perceived Israeli weakness. Israel has faced domestic turmoil in recent months over the government’s proposals to exert more political control over the judiciary; scores of military reservists have said they won’t volunteer for duty should the legislation pass.

U.S. officials were also on alert in the days following Gen. Qaani’s meetings after obtaining intelligence that Iran was poised to carry out a drone strike on a commercial ship in the Middle East.

As part of its campaign against Israel, U.S. and Israeli officials say, Iran has also carried out at least four drone strikes on commercial ships in the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea over the last two years, with the most recent one coming in February. Previous drone strikes have tried to target ships affiliated with Israel.

The U.S. Navy took the unusual step of announcing the arrival in the Red Sea of a submarine carrying cruise missiles capable of striking Iran.

Fears of an imminent attack subsided, U.S. officials said.