On June 21, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) announced that it had killed Muhammad Saeed Izadi, aka Hajj Ramadan, the commander of the Palestine branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF). Israel killed Izadi in an overnight airstrike targeting his hideout in Iran’s Qom province. As the key liaison between Tehran and Hamas, including other Palestinian terrorist groups, the IRGC-QF officer served as the main conduit of Iranian military and financial support for its proxies.
The IDF discovered documents in Gaza that tied Izadi to arming and funding Hamas before Palestinian terror groups attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, as well as plans to carry out a second invasion of the Jewish state.
A statement published by the Israeli military said that a joint IDF-Shin Bet operation at the underground Hamas command center beneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis uncovered documents confirming recent coordination between Hamas’s military leadership and Izadi. The documents included correspondence outlining two arms transfer initiatives: Tufan 1 (the codename of the October 7 operation), involving $21 million in weapons, and Tufan 2, which aimed to provide Hamas with an additional $25 million in armaments.
The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (MAITIC) provided additional information about Izadi’s role, including that he was responsible for coordinating between Hamas, Hezbollah, and former Syrian leader Bashar al Assad. Izadi’s activities were key to implementing former IRGC-QF commander Qassem Soleimani’s vision of a united “resistance axis” under Iranian leadership.
MAITIC noted that Izadi worked to rebuild Hamas’s military presence in Lebanon, enforce coordination with Hezbollah, and renew ties with Assad’s regime in Syria while overcoming internal opposition. He imposed command structures, managed propaganda strategies, reprimanded Hamas leaders for operational breaches, and maintained strict oversight of the group’s funding, which included directly allocating millions of dollars for operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
On December 14, 2023, the United States and the United Kingdom imposed sanctions on Saeed Izadi for his central role in funding, arming, and coordinating with Palestinian terrorist groups. The United Kingdom’s sanctions detailed that the IRGC-QF “transferred hundreds of millions of dollars in financial assistance and provision of weapons and operational training” to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
According to a BBC report, Izadi had previously escaped an attempt to eliminate him on April 1, 2024, when Israel struck the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing other high-ranking IRGC-QF officials. The IRGC has not published an official statement about Izadi’s death.
