Hamas, Islamic Jihad haven’t heard from handlers in IRGC since start of Iran war — report

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps officers who are responsible for contact with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have reportedly failed to make contact with the terror groups since the US and Israel launched a bombing campaign on the Iranian regime on Saturday.

Sources from the groups are cited by the Arabic-language UK newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, saying it’s unclear whether the IRGC officers responsible for Palestinian affairs have been assassinated.

According to the outlet, the IRGC officers in question are usually in continuous contact with first- and second-tier commanders of Hamas, PIJ and other Iran-backed Palestinian factions.

“Usually, messages are encrypted, electronically or otherwise. But since the beginning of this war, no messages have been received,” the outlet quotes its sources as saying.

The sources quoted by Asharq al-Awsat say that among the missing IRGC Palestinian Affairs officers are two unnamed commanders who were appointed to replace IRGC Palestinian division chief Saeed Izadi, who was killed by Israel during the 12-day Israel-Iran war in June.

Separately, Asharq al-Awsat cites PIJ sources as saying that the group’s Lebanon military chief, Adham al-Othman, was staying at a Hezbollah safe house with several of that terror group’s operatives when he was killed in an IDF airstrike early yesterday in Beirut’s southern Dahiyeh district, a Hezbollah stronghold.