Hamas chief is dead: What changes?

In the past two days, two major enemies of Israel have been killed: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, while visiting Tehran, and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, in a targeted strike on Beirut.

Shukr and Haniyeh are the two most senior Hezbollah and Hamas figures killed since Hamas launched the war with the October 7 massacre, joined a day later by Hezbollah. Both assassinations are major victories for Israel, removing terror leaders who were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians.

Haniyeh is the more significant scalp, although Israel has not officially claimed responsibility for his death. He was Hamas’ political chief and a key instigator of the Second Intifada, which claimed 700 Israeli lives. He was not directly responsible for October 7 – the invasion was led by Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar  – but he has been a key player in ceasefire and hostage release talks.

His fanaticism was illustrated by his response to the deaths of three of his sons and several grandchildren in an Israeli attack on Gaza in April. He told Al-Jazeera  “I thank God for this honour.”

Shukr was Hezbollah’s most senior military commander and a right-hand man to terror leader Hassan Nasrallah. His death was Israel’s response to a Hezbollah attack on which killed 12 children last week.

In the best case scenario, Haniyeh’s death could allow Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to claim victory and agree to a ceasefire in Gaza. But Sinwar is still at large, there are other reasons neither side  wants a ceasefire, and analysts agree the assassinations have made successful hostage negotiations less likely.

In the worst case scenario, the killing of Haniyeh in Iran and the increased level of conflict with Iran-backed Hezbollah may combine to bring Iran further into the conflict and be the catalyst for a more widespread regional war.

This is how leading analysts read the implications:

With two strikes in enemy capitals, the war enters uncharted territory (David Horowitz, Times of Israel)

With the killings of two terror chiefs in the capital cities of two enemy nations in the past few hours, the existential war that began for Israel with Hamas’s invasion and slaughter on October 7 has now entered uncharted territory.

The elimination of Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s most senior military official, in a strike in Beirut confirmed by Israel, demonstrated Israel’s remarkable intelligence capabilities and its capacity to carry out a precision strike even on a target who would have known that he was in Israel’s sights. It was by no means unprecedented, however.

The killing of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, blamed on Israel but not acknowledged by Israel, by contrast, is a blow of a different order.

Israel has struck key figures inside Iran in the past, being widely regarded as responsible for the killing of Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020, for instance. It killed Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, in Gaza in 2004. And it has targeted the most senior figures in Hamas in foreign capitals, with the failed Mossad assassination of Haniyeh’s predecessor Khaled Mashaal in Amman in 1997.

But now, according to the unconfirmed reports of Israeli responsibility, it has eliminated the head of one of Iran’s array of proxy terror groups in the heart of Iran — taking the war directly, and humiliatingly, to the capital of the Islamic Republic, challenging its sovereignty, even as Tehran was celebrating the inauguration of a new president.

Without doubt, “retaliation” will follow; I use quotation marks around that word because nobody should lose sight of the fact that this regional war was initiated by Hamas, invading sovereign Israel from the adjacent territory governed by Hamas and on which Israel had no claims, and was then escalated by Hezbollah, the Houthis et al under Iran’s direction.

Assassinations in Iran and Lebanon have pushed the Mideast to the edge of a regional war (Amos Harel, Haaretz)

We may be on the verge of another escalation in the war, one that could lead to a larger regional conflict. Iran will find it hard not to retaliate for an assassination on its soil. Until now, however, it seemed both Iran and Hezbollah sought to contain the conflict with Israel and prevent it from turning into an all-out war.

These latest developments exposed the Iranian axis' vulnerability. After the most recent assassinations – and the ones that came before – Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Hamas' leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, find themselves almost alone at the top. Haniyeh's death is expected to have a negative impact on talks for a hostage deal, which have all but hit an impasse since Israel toughened its stance.

 For nearly ten months, Israel has been unable to stabilize the situation along the northern border and allow for the return of 60,000 Israelis to their homes. Even if the Beirut strike doesn't lead to an all-out war, restoring stability to the Lebanese border seems, for now, out of reach.

It seems that the alternate path – securing a hostage release and cease-fire deal in Gaza, followed by expedited U.S. efforts to quell the flames in the north – has hit a dead end. The Israeli government and army are nowhere near solving the strategic problems in the north, and the residents have lost their patience long ago. Only a handful have returned to their homes, their lives are still in danger, and no one knows how and when quiet will return to the border. Under these circumstances, the risk of a deterioration into an all-out war becomes real – even more so now.

The Hamas leader’s death adds uncertainty to instability (Rob Eshman, Forward)

Haniyeh is just the latest line of Hamas leaders that Israel, whack-a-mole style, has knocked down.

In 2002, Israel dropped a one-ton bomb on the house of Salah Shehadeh, the commander of Hamas’ military wing. Hellfire missiles took out Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the movement’s spiritual leader, in 2004. His successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, died in another Hellfire missile attack, a few months later. In April, the IDF reported it had killed 111 Hamas leaders in Gaza. Last month it claimed to have finally killed Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ elusive military chief, after numerous failed attempts.

A 2006 University of Michigan study of the impact of Israel’s targeted assassinations from 2000-2004 found that they did not lead to a sustained decrease in violence.

“Targeted assassinations may be useful as a political tool to signal a state’s determination to punish terrorists and placate an angry public,” the study’s authors concluded, “but there is little evidence that they actually impact the course of an insurgency.”

So are we closer to peace, or on the brink of an expanding war? Israel has removed one danger and replaced it with uncertainty.

Eyal Zisser, professor at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, said in a telephone interview that Iran must respond to the attack, but that it would likely attempt a symbolic retaliation, conducted through a proxy, since it lacks Israel’s capabilities for a long-range operation.

That calculated response itself could go awry, which might lead to a broader response by Israel.

With Hezbollah and Hamas assassinations, Netanyahu shows willingness to risk regional war for political survival (Asher Kaufman, The Conversation)

 By targeting these two leaders, the Israeli government has demonstrated that it is willing to risk an escalation of conflict into new fronts. This comes despite some senior defense chiefs sending, at best, conflicting messages in recent months over whether the Israeli Defense Forces are adequately prepared, after nine months of confrontation in Gaza, for a full-scale war in Lebanon or elsewhere.

As a scholar of Lebanon and Israel, I have followed the recent events in the region with growing concern. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be betting that Iran and Hezbollah have no real appetite for full-scale war and would rather continue a policy of continued attrition against Israel.

If so, it is a risky strategy, and any miscalculation could be catastrophic.

Netanyahu may be counting on the fact that so far Iran and Hezbollah have not shown an appetite for a full war, despite the fact that Hezbollah has said it is prepared for it.

So far, Israel also has not shown an appetite for a full war on multiple fronts. But I fear events such as the assassinations in recent days may lead us to a downward spiral that would be difficult to control.

Haniyeh's death is a blow to Hamas, but history proves there's always a replacement (Jack Khoury, Haaretz)

Haniyeh's death is not an "organizational earthquake" as far as Hamas is concerned. Two members of the group's political bureau senior members, Khaled Meshal and Mousa Abu Marzouk, can immediately fill the position, as can Khalil al-Hayya, who leading the negotiations in Cairo and Doha, and has recently also met with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Al-Hayya is Sinwar's deputy and has become a highly dominant figure since the war began. Abu Marzouk, on the other hand, handles the internal Palestinian while also working with the group's contact with China and Moscow.

Hamas leadership will need to decide whether to immediately appoint a new head of its political bureau or an acting one. The convening of the group's political bureau will be difficult, especially given the scope of destruction in Gaza and the fact that Hamas members are considered targets for further assassinations.

For Hamas, the damage to its infrastructure in Gaza, alongside the assassination of figures like Deif and Marwan Issa, is seen as a much more significant blow. Past assassinations, however, have shown that every one of the group's killed leaders had a replacement and that the group's control on the ground is not dependent upon one figure or another.

Yahya Sinwar was in prison when Hamas leadership decided to take over the Gaza Strip in a coup. Upon his release, he quickly managed to find his way into the group's leadership in Gaza, and he is its most influential figure until today.