THE SHORT ANSWER

Hamas and Hezbollah are the two most powerful militant organizations fighting Israel. They are not the same organization. They come from different countries, different branches of Islam, and different founding moments. But they share one critical thing — Iran. Iran created Hezbollah, funds Hamas, and uses both organizations as tools of its regional strategy. Understanding Hamas and Hezbollah requires understanding Iran first.

IRAN — THE FORCE BEHIND BOTH ORGANIZATIONS

Iran is a large country to the east of Iraq — about the size of Alaska — with approximately 87 million people. For most of the 20th century Iran was governed by a king called the Shah who was backed by the United States and Britain. The Shah was secular and pro-Western but also authoritarian and repressive of political opposition.

In 1979 the Shah was overthrown in a popular revolution. The new government was an Islamic republic governed by Shia Muslim religious leaders — clerics who believed Islamic law should govern the state. The revolution's leader was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The new Iranian government declared three things immediately that shaped everything that followed. It declared itself an enemy of Israel. It declared itself an enemy of American influence in the Middle East. And it declared its intention to export its Islamic revolution to other countries in the region — meaning to fund, arm, and support militant groups that shared its goals.

That 1979 declaration is the origin of Iran's relationship with both Hamas and Hezbollah. Iran did not create these organizations because it cares deeply about Palestinian rights. It created and funds them as strategic tools — proxies that allow Iran to project military power and political influence throughout the Middle East without directly committing Iranian military forces.

This is called Iran's Axis of Resistance — a network of armed groups across the region that Iran funds and directs including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and various militias in Iraq and Syria. Each group has its own local grievances and goals. But they all receive Iranian money, weapons, and strategic direction.

HEZBOLLAH

WHERE HEZBOLLAH CAME FROM

Lebanon is a small country on Israel's northern border — about the size of Connecticut. In the early 1980s Lebanon was in the middle of a devastating civil war that had been going on since 1975. It was a country divided among multiple armed factions — Christian militias, Palestinian fighters, Sunni and Shia Muslim groups, and the Syrian military.

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon. The stated goal was to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization — the PLO — which had established a military presence in southern Lebanon and was launching attacks into northern Israel. Israeli forces pushed all the way to Beirut. The invasion killed significant numbers of Lebanese civilians and Israeli forces remained in parts of Lebanon for years.

Iran saw an opportunity. Iranian Revolutionary Guards — Iran's elite military force — entered Lebanon in 1982 and helped found Hezbollah. Iran provided the money, the weapons, the training, and the ideology. Hezbollah announced its existence publicly in 1985 with a founding manifesto that called for three things — driving Israel out of Lebanon, eliminating Israel as a state, and establishing an Islamic republic in Lebanon.

WHAT HEZBOLLAH BECAME

Hezbollah grew from a small militant group into one of the most powerful non-state military forces in the world. At its peak before the current conflict it had more than 150,000 rockets and missiles — more than most national militaries. It fought Israel in a major war in 2006 that ended in a ceasefire with no clear winner.

Hezbollah also became a legitimate political party in Lebanon. It has members of parliament, cabinet ministers, schools, hospitals, and television stations. This dual nature — armed militant organization and legitimate political party simultaneously — is deliberate and strategic. It makes Hezbollah impossible to destroy militarily without harming the civilian populations that depend on its social services.

Iran provides Hezbollah with an estimated $700 million to $1 billion per year confirmed by the U.S. State Department. Without Iranian funding Hezbollah could not maintain its military capacity or its social service network.

In September 2024 Israel assassinated Hezbollah's longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israeli forces entered southern Lebanon in October 2024. A ceasefire was reached in November 2024. Israeli strikes on what it describes as Hezbollah targets in Lebanon have continued since — including the strikes on June 19 2026 that killed at least 47 people and threatened the Iran nuclear deal.

HAMAS

WHERE HAMAS CAME FROM

Gaza is a strip of land on the southwestern corner of historic Palestine — about the size of Philadelphia — that has been under Israeli military control since 1967. By the late 1980s Gaza was poor, densely populated, and seething with anger at two decades of Israeli military occupation.

In December 1987 a Palestinian uprising began — triggered when an Israeli army truck killed four Palestinian workers. Palestinians called it the first intifada — intifada means uprising in Arabic.

Hamas was founded that same month by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric, as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. Its 1988 founding charter declared that Palestine is an Islamic homeland that can never be surrendered and that destroying Israel is a religious duty for Palestinian Muslims.

Hamas positioned itself as an alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization — the PLO — which had been the main Palestinian political organization since 1964. The PLO eventually recognized Israel's right to exist and signed peace agreements. Hamas rejected both the recognition and the agreements completely. It has never recognized Israel's right to exist.

Hamas built its support through two things simultaneously. Social services — schools, hospitals, welfare programs — for Palestinians living in poverty. And armed attacks against Israel.

In 2006 Hamas won Palestinian elections and took control of Gaza. Israel and Egypt imposed an economic blockade. Hamas continued launching rockets into Israel. Israel launched major military operations into Gaza in 2008, 2012, 2014, and 2021.

On October 7 2023 Hamas launched a surprise attack on southern Israel killing approximately 1,200 people — the deadliest attack on Jewish people since the Holocaust. Approximately 250 people were taken hostage. Israel declared war on Hamas and launched a military campaign in Gaza that continues today.

IRAN AND HAMAS — THE CONFIRMED RELATIONSHIP

Hamas is a Sunni Muslim organization. Iran is a Shia Muslim state. Sunni and Shia Islam have been in conflict with each other for 1,400 years. So why does Iran fund Hamas?

Because they share a common enemy — Israel — and Iran uses Hamas as a strategic tool regardless of the sectarian difference.

Iran provides Hamas with an estimated $100 million per year confirmed by U.S. and Israeli intelligence assessments. Iran provides weapons, training, and technical assistance for rocket development. The October 7, 2023 attack involved weapons and tactics that U.S. and Israeli officials confirmed showed Iranian influence and support.

After October 7 Iran's relationship with Hamas became more complicated. Iran publicly celebrated the attack but privately some Iranian officials were reportedly caught off guard by its scale. The attack triggered the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and the eventual escalation that led to the 2026 Iran war — a conflict Iran did not necessarily want at that moment.

WHY IRAN FUNDS BOTH

Iran's strategy is confirmed by decades of consistent behavior and explicit statements by Iranian leaders.

Iran uses proxy groups — Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis, Iraqi militias — to project military power throughout the Middle East without directly committing Iranian forces. This gives Iran what military strategists call strategic depth. If Israel or the United States wants to attack Iran's interests they have to deal with threats from Lebanon, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq simultaneously. That deterrence is the point.

Iran also uses these groups to pressure Israel and keep U.S. forces tied down in the region. Every Hezbollah rocket into northern Israel, every Hamas attack, every Houthi strike on Red Sea shipping forces the United States and its allies to respond — costing money, attention, and political capital that might otherwise be directed at Iran itself.

The nuclear program is the third element. Iran's nuclear development — the confirmed 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity that exists today — gives Iran leverage in negotiations and a potential deterrent against military attack. The proxy network, the regional influence, and the nuclear program together form Iran's confirmed strategic posture.

That posture is why the Iran nuclear deal is so difficult. The nuclear question and the proxy question are connected but distinct. Stopping Iran's nuclear program does not stop Hezbollah. Destroying Hezbollah does not stop the nuclear program. The current MOU signed June 18 2026 addresses the nuclear question partially and does not address the proxy network at all.

That is why the deal signed at Versailles is already in jeopardy — because Israel, which was not party to the negotiations, is still fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon, which Iran considers a violation of the ceasefire terms.

Everything connects back to Iran. Iran created Hezbollah. Iran funds Hamas. Iran is developing nuclear weapons capability. And the United States spent $29 billion and lost 13 Americans in a war whose stated goal was to stop Iran's nuclear program — while leaving Iran's proxy network entirely intact.

That is the confirmed picture at Part 3 of this series.

Part 4 — Why It Matters Today — publishes next at readida.com.

THE UNITED STATES AND IRAN — WHAT MOST AMERICANS DO NOT KNOW

Iran's hostility toward the United States did not begin in 1979. It began in 1953. That confirmed history is essential to understanding everything that followed.

THE 1953 CIA COUP

In 1951 Iran elected a prime minister named Mohammad Mosaddegh. He was a democrat, a nationalist, and enormously popular. His signature achievement was nationalizing Iran's oil industry — taking it back from the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company which had been extracting Iranian oil for decades while paying Iran a fraction of its value.

Britain was furious. It imposed an international boycott of Iranian oil and appealed to the United States for help. The United States — under President Eisenhower, concerned about Soviet influence in Iran — agreed. In August 1953 the CIA and British intelligence orchestrated a coup. Operation Ajax was the CIA's code name. They paid Iranian military officers, hired mobs to create chaos in the streets, and engineered Mosaddegh's arrest. He spent the rest of his life under house arrest.

The Shah — Mohammad Reza Pahlavi — was reinstalled with full U.S. and British support. He was not elected. He was installed by foreign powers to protect foreign oil interests.

The United States government officially acknowledged its role in the 1953 coup in 2013 when the State Department declassified documents confirming CIA involvement. It was confirmed. It happened.

When Iranians chanted Death to America after the 1979 revolution they were not reacting to abstract American imperialism. They were reacting to the confirmed fact that the United States had overthrown their democratically elected government 26 years earlier.

THE SHAH — WHAT THE U.S. SUPPORTED

From 1953 to 1979 — 26 years — the United States backed the Shah. The Shah modernized Iran's economy and was pro-Western and anti-Soviet. He was also authoritarian and repressive. His secret police — called SAVAK — tortured and killed political opponents. Thousands of Iranians were imprisoned, tortured, and executed during his reign.

The United States continued supporting the Shah throughout this period because he was strategically useful. American officials were aware of SAVAK's brutality. They continued the relationship anyway.

When the Iranian people rose up against the Shah in 1979 their anger was directed at both the Shah and the United States that had kept him in power for 26 years.

THE HOSTAGE CRISIS

After the revolution the Shah fled Iran. President Carter allowed him to enter the United States for cancer treatment in October 1979. To Iranians this was the United States protecting the man who had oppressed them — consistent with everything the U.S. had done since 1953.

Iranian students seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days. The crisis destroyed the Carter presidency and set the tone for U.S.-Iran relations for the next 45 years.

THE IRAN-IRAQ WAR — U.S. SUPPORT FOR IRAQ

In 1980 Saddam Hussein's Iraq invaded Iran. The war lasted eight years and killed approximately 500,000 Iranians. The United States supported Iraq — providing intelligence, economic assistance, and diplomatic cover even when Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian forces. The U.S. saw Iraq as a check against the new Iranian revolutionary government.

Iran has never forgotten that the United States helped arm the country that killed half a million Iranians.

THE USS VINCENNES — 1988

In July 1988 the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 — a civilian airliner — over the Persian Gulf killing all 290 people on board including 66 children. The U.S. military said the crew mistook the civilian aircraft for an Iranian fighter jet. The U.S. paid $61.8 million in compensation to victims' families but never formally apologized and never acknowledged wrongdoing.

Iran has never accepted the explanation that it was a mistake.

THE CONFIRMED THROUGH LINE

The 1953 coup. 26 years of backing the Shah's authoritarian government. Supporting Iraq in a war that killed 500,000 Iranians. Shooting down a civilian airliner. Decades of economic sanctions. These are confirmed historical facts not Iranian propaganda.

They do not justify Iran's support for terrorism, its nuclear program, or its proxy wars. But they explain why Iran declared the United States its enemy in 1979 and why that enmity has never been resolved in 45 years of negotiations, sanctions, and now war.

Understanding the conflict requires understanding both sides of this history. The United States has genuine security interests in the Middle East. Iran has genuine historical grievances against the United States. Both things are confirmed and both things are true simultaneously.

That confirmed complexity is what makes the current moment — an Iran deal signed at Versailles while Israel strikes Lebanon and Iran threatens to close the Strait again — so difficult to resolve.

Sources: Britannica confirmed Hamas founding December 1987 and charter · Reuters confirmed Hezbollah founding by Iranian Revolutionary Guards 1982 · AP confirmed October 7 death toll and hostage count · CFR confirmed Iran Axis of Resistance and proxy funding estimates · BBC confirmed Hezbollah military capabilities and Nasrallah assassination · U.S. State Department confirmed $700M-$1B Hezbollah annual funding and Hamas $100M estimate · PBS NewsHour confirmed Iran 1979 revolution and regional strategy · Arms Control Association confirmed Iran nuclear stockpile 440.9 kg · Carnegie Endowment confirmed Iran proxy strategy and nuclear deterrence posture · State Department 2013 declassified documents confirmed CIA role in 1953 coup · National Security Archive confirmed Operation Ajax details · History.com confirmed Shah SAVAK and U.S. support · AP confirmed Iran-Iraq War U.S. support and chemical weapons knowledge · U.S. Navy confirmed USS Vincennes Iran Air 655 incident July 3 1988 · U.S. Department of Justice confirmed $61.8 million compensation payment

Now you know. Middle East Explained Series at readida.com