Behind the curtain: Iran's unseen influence on Gaza talks
Just a month ago, in the immediate aftermath of the IDF's success in Iran and ahead of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's visit to Washington, there was a real sense in the air – among policymakers, journalists, and diplomats – that a hostage-ceasefire deal with Hamas was finally within reach.
US President Donald Trump spoke of imminent good news, as did his envoy Steve Witkoff. Egyptian and Qatari negotiators talked about positive movement. Israeli officials signaled that Hamas was softening its stance, and that Israel was as well. The atmosphere was charged with cautious optimism. This time, the sense was, it's real.
But it wasn't.
Looking back, it's worth unpacking why that optimism turned out to be misplaced: yet another false peak in a long series of dashed hopes.
A key driver of that misplaced confidence was the assumption that the blows dealt to Iran – military, symbolic, and operational – would echo in Gaza. That after being struck by Israel and the US, Iran would be too weakened to continue backing Hamas with the same intensity. And that Hamas, sensing the shifting balance of power, would show more flexibility.
Netanyahu himself said as much on June 22: the campaign in Iran, he declared, would 'help us expedite our victory and the release of all our hostages.' Trump echoed the message a couple of days later.
Why would an attack on Iran move the needle in Gaza? Because of a belief that Iran's loss was Hamas's loss, and that the Islamic Republic's defeat would translate into Hamas's pliability.
There were some reasons to think this was plausible. In addition to denigrating Iran's nuclear and missile stockpiles and production capabilities, the strike on the Islamic Republic killed key military figures, including Saeed Izadi, a senior Revolutionary Guard officer who coordinated with Hamas. The thinking was straightforward: cut off the head of the octopus, and the tentacles – Iran's proxies – will flail.
With Iran momentarily reeling, the logic went, Hamas would sense that it was now on its own and seek an exit. The feeling was that the shockwaves of the attack would loosen Hamas's grip and push it toward a deal, and that the fear of being left without a sponsor – or being the next one to be steamrolled – would spur a shift in their negotiating posture.
But that's not what happened.
Failure to reach a deal
Netanyahu travelled to Washington and returned home, but no deal was struck. The momentum, such as it was, dissipated. Talks in Doha continued, but progress stalled. The flexibility expected from Hamas never materialized. Instead, it was Israel that appeared to bend.
The thinking behind that Israeli flexibility, according to some observers, was strategic: now that Israel had clearly demonstrated its overwhelming military might – on global display for all to see – it no longer needed to fear that a deal with Hamas would be perceived as capitulation. Giving up certain demands, like holding onto the Morag corridor, wouldn't erode deterrence, because deterrence had already been so forcefully reestablished in Iran.
In this light, the logic ran, Israel could afford to show compromise. And it did. But Hamas didn't respond in kind.
Why not?
Earlier this week, during a press conference in Scotland, Trump offered his take: Iran.
'I will say that Iran, I think, interjected themselves in this last negotiation,' Trump told reporters on Monday. 'I think they got involved in this negotiation, telling Hamas and giving Hamas signals and orders, and that's not good. That's not good.'
In other words, rather than pulling back, Iran seems to have doubled down. Instead of giving Hamas the green light to deal, Trump left the impression that Tehran sent word to dig in.
But why would a wounded Iran sabotage a potential ceasefire deal in Gaza?
For one, to avoid losing what remains of one of its key regional proxies. Iran has spent years – decades – building up Hamas, Hezbollah, and other groups to surround Israel in what it calls the 'axis of resistance.' That axis has taken heavy hits: Hezbollah has been severely degraded, Syria is no longer an uncontested Iranian playground, and Hamas – though still fighting – is a shadow of what it was before October 7.
Still, Tehran has not given up on the strategy, and it certainly doesn't want to lose Hamas entirely or allow it to be stripped of military power.
Second, the ongoing war in Gaza keeps the pressure squarely on Israel. Images of hungry Gazans, aid trucks mobbed, and malnourished children dominate the headlines. That narrative – one of Gazans suffering under Israeli siege – shifts the spotlight away from Iran.
Since the IDF and US strikes on Iran in June, Tehran has faced internal unrest, economic turmoil, and rising dissent. The longer the world focuses on Gaza – on the humanitarian crisis, on Israel's actions – the less attention is paid to what's happening inside Iran. For a regime worried about instability at home, this is no small thing.
Third, there's the Saudi angle. One of Iran's overriding regional goals is to prevent normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis have said repeatedly that normalization depends on a ceasefire in Gaza and progress toward a Palestinian state. As long as the war drags on, there is no normalization. For Tehran, prolonging the conflict is a way of blocking what would be a strategic nightmare: a US-brokered Israeli-Saudi alliance.
And finally, there's the simple cost-benefit calculus. Iran has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Hamas over the years in cash, weapons, and training. If the terrorist group were now to strike a deal that stripped it of its ability to govern or wage war, that investment would be completely lost. From Iran's perspective, a hobbled proxy is still better than no proxy at all.
Not surprisingly, Iran denied any interference. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei rejected Trump's accusations as 'absolutely baseless' and 'a form of projection and evasion of responsibility and accountability.'
He added that Hamas negotiators 'do not need the intervention of third parties' and that Hamas 'recognizes and pursues the interests of the oppressed people of Gaza in the most appropriate manner.'
But the denial rang a bit too loudly. As Shakespeare might have put it, the spokesman protests too much.
A month ago, the talk was about momentum. Iran had been knocked back, and the assumption was that Hamas would soon follow. That hasn't happened. The optimism of June has given way to the stalemate of July.
If Trump is right, and Iran has indeed inserted itself into the talks, then there's an important lesson here: when it comes to Hamas, the levers of power aren't necessarily in the tunnels of Gaza or the luxury hotel suites of Doha, but 1,500 kilometers to the east in Tehran.
And if that's the case, then the assumptions driving this process and what it will take to move Hamas need a serious rethinking.
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