Hamas politburo chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the heart of Iran in a missile strike earlier this week, imperiling a shaky negotiation process and stoking fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East. As per Iranian state media, a “short-range airborne projectile” slammed into a building in Tehran where the Hamas leader was staying. Haniyeh and a personal bodyguard, identified as Wasim Abu Shaaban, were killed in the strike. The building was reportedly reserved for Iranian military veterans. Haniyeh, who has been living in Qatar since 2019, was in Tehran as a state guest to attend the swearing-in of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Hamas and Iranian officials blamed Israel, but the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not comment on the assassination.
Who dunit?
Israel, the archenemy of Iran, has not claimed Haniyeh’s killing, but the strike carries its signature. Tel Aviv has a long history of sabotaging Iranian nuclear and military facilities and assassinating its nuclear scientists and military officials. It was suspected for killing five top Iranian nuclear scientists between 2010 and 2020 including Masoud Ali Mohammadi, Majid Shahriari, Darioush Rezaeinejad, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, and Mohsen Fakhrizadeh. Fakhrizadeh, the father of Iran’s nuclear program, was the latest victim of Israel’s assassination campaign. Fakhrizadeh was targeted in a sophisticated hit involving a satellite-controlled machine-gun with artificial intelligence as he drove in a convoy outside Tehran in November 2020. Fakhrizadeh’s killing followed in a telling coincidence on the heels of assassination of Gen Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, in a US drone strike at Baghdad airport.
The Quds Force, a branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, is believed to training and supporting what the West calls “Iranian proxies,” including Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the Palestinian territories, Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq – all sworn enemies of Israel. This makes it abundantly clear who would benefit from Soleimani’s assassination. Four years later, another senior commander of the Quds Force, Brigadier General Reza Zahidi, was also killed along with his deputy Brigadier General Mohamad Hadi Haji Rahimi in an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, in April 2024. Days later, the Jewish state killed three sons and four grandchildren of Haniyeh in an air raid on their car in Gaza. All these extrajudicial murders make Tel Aviv the obvious culprit for Haniyeh’s killing.
Did the US know?
Even before Iran would launch formal investigations, the US media quickly spun a story based on the accounts of “sources” and “unnamed Iranian officials” in an attempt to preempt any Iranian narrative. The US has claimed that it was “not involved in, or aware of” the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, who it had designated as a global terrorist. The US may not be involved, but its claim of having no prior knowledge of the plot is preposterous.
Days before the Tehran hit, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who faces possible ICC arrest warrants for war crimes, visited the US where he met top administration officials and updated the Congress on his months-long genocidal campaign. He received 39 applauses from Congressmen, including 23 standing ovations, during his speech. This defies logic that the Israeli leader would not have taken his main military backer into confidence before targeting Haniyeh at a time when the region is teetering on the edge of a wider conflict.
Whydunit?
The first causality of Haniyeh’s assassination is going to be the nascent negotiation process. Haniyeh was the political face and main interlocutor of Hamas who had been instrumental in negotiations for a ceasefire. Despite his tough-talking, Haniyeh was believed to be a moderate voice in the movement compared to hawkish figures like Yahya Sinwar. By killing Haniyeh, Israel has all but killed the hopes for a negotiated end to its brutal military campaign in the Gaza Strip. “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side?” said Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, the prime minister of Qatar, where Haniyeh had been living in exile since 2019. Qatar was mediating truce talks between the two sides.
What could be Israel’s calculus? Let’s evaluate.
Nixing talks
Israel doesn’t want to cease fire until it achieves its avowed objective: to annihilate Hamas. It has defied repeated calls for a humanitarian pause from international organizations. Nonetheless, nine months into its carpet bombing and ground invasion of Gaza with modern American weaponry, Israel could neither eliminate Hamas’s fighting capability nor shake its will to fight. Only about a third of the fighters from Hamas have been killed by Israel, while the majority of its extensive tunnel network remains intact, according to US intelligence estimates. “Although Hamas’ communications and military abilities have been degraded, only 30 to 35 per cent of its fighters — those who were a part of Hamas before the Oct 7 attack — have been killed and about 65 per cent of its tunnels are still intact,” Politico reported in May, citing US intelligence.
As Israel’s Gaza campaign prolongs, public backlash in the West grows. Unsettled, the Netanyahu war cabinet decided to pursue the decapitation strategy to take the global spotlight off its genocidal campaign. Hours before assassinating Haniyeh, Israeli forces killed Hezbollah’s senior commander Fuad Shukr in an air strike in Beirut, Lebanon. The two targeted assassinations were followed by a claim by Tel Aviv that it has also taken out Hamas top military commander Mohammed Deif in a Gaza strike.
Will this decapitation strategy bring Hamas and Hezbollah to their knees? It’s highly unlikely. The decapitation tactic works mainly in dealing with mafias or criminals gangs where if the don or linchpin is eliminated, the mafia or gang quickly collapses or factionalizes. However, the strategy is not effective in the fight against ideologically driven organizations. Decapitation may weaken them temporarily or dent their operational efficacy, but in the long run it proves highly counterproductive. It could further radicalise the organisation, blunt pragmatic voices within, and result in a resurge in its attacks. In the case of Hamas and Hezbollah too, Israel’s targeted killing tactic will be counterproductive as it would increase radicalization, trigger fresh recruitments, strengthen hardliners, and isolate moderate figures within the two movements.
Provoking Iran
Haniyeh’s targeted killing in the heart of Tehran appears to be aimed at provoking Iran into a reckless retaliation which Israel could use as a pretext to suck the United States into a direct conflict with the Islamic Republic. Israel knows that the “Axis of Resistance” will remain a huge security challenge unless its fountainhead, Iran, is weakened militarily and economically. The Axis of Resistance is a coalition of political and military groups in West Asia, including Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, Houthis, Iraqi Shia militias, which are allied with Iran and strongly opposed to Israel and its main military backer America. By targeting Haniyeh in Tehran, Israel sought to humiliate the Islamic Republic and convey a message to the “Axis” leaders that they are not safe even in their safest sanctuary.
Tel Aviv has repeatedly tried to provoke Iran since the outbreak of the current Gaza conflict. The most serious provocation came in April this year when Israeli fighter jets flattened Iranian Embassy in the Syrian capital, killing top Al Quds commander, his deputy, and some other Iranian military officials. Iran unleashed retaliation by sending a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel. The Iranian salvo didn’t cause any casualties nor did it inflict any infra damage, but it carried a huge symbolic value because it was the first-ever direct attack by Tehran on Israeli territory. Tel Aviv vowed to “exact a price” and carried out a limited military attack days after the Iranian response. Tensions apparently deescalated after the tit-for-tat strikes. A month later, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash on the Azerbaijan border. While Iran has not revealed findings of its investigations, many suspect Israel’s involvement in the crash shrouded in mystery. “There are reasons beyond the obvious Gaza/Hezbollah/Iran/Israel tensions for Mossad (Israel's national intelligence agency) to have been involved. It would not be a surprise...,” said a former European Parliament member, Nick Griffin.
What next?
Will Iran retaliate to the humiliating provocation? Yes. Will it lead to a full-blown regional war? No. Tehran is convinced Tel Aviv is behind Haniyeh’s assassination. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian have already vowed to exact revenge. “The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our house and made us bereaved,” Khamenei said in a statement, adding that “it also prepared the ground for a harsh punishment for itself.”
However, Iran’s envoy to the UN indicated his country may not rush. “The Islamic Republic of Iran reserves its inherent right to self-defense in accordance with international law to respond decisively to this terrorist and criminal act when it deems necessary and appropriate,” Amir Saeid Iravani told the Security Council. Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthis have also sworn to avenge Haniyeh’s killing.
Iran has to avenge this humiliation. It has to retaliate to reestablish deterrence. If it does not, it would undermine its regional influence, send out a message that it cannot protect a state guest, and shake the confidence of “Axis” groups in the Islamic Republic. However, the response would be measured and calculated because Tehran and its “Axis” allies would try to avoid a regional conflagration – something Netanyahu desires to escalate the situation into a direct US-Iran conflict. The US has already ordered more destroyers, cruisers, and fighter jets to the region to “defend Israel.” Tehran knows that a direct military conflict with the US could trigger catastrophic strikes on its nuclear, military, and infrastructure facilities and cripple it economically too. Haniyeh’s assassination in a high security zone in the heart of capital Tehran has already exposed chinks in Iran’s armoury.