Within hours of each other, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran and Hezbollah’s “Defense Minister” Fuad Shukr was killed in an airstrike in Beirut, raising the specter of further escalation in the Middle East.
Analysts who discussed the situation with The Press Service of Israel said the strikes sent powerful messages to Iran and Hezbollah, stressed that Haniyeh’s death is very embarrassing for the regime in the eyes of the Iranian public, and agreed that Haniyeh’s assassination would only pose a short-term delay for ceasefire efforts.
Israel confirmed Tuesday night’s Beirut airstrike, which eliminated Fuad Shukr, the Hezbollah commander responsible for a deadly rocket attack on Majdal Shams, which killed 12 children in the Druze village. Shukr was a member of Hezbollah’s Jihad Council, the terror group’s highest decision-making body on military affairs, and was regarded as a right-hand man to Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s politburo, was in Tehran attending the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. Unlike the Beirut strike, however, Israeli officials have not commented.
Pragmatic, But Not Moderate
Both Haniyeh and Shukr were the highest-level Hamas and Hezbollah figures killed since Israel, underscoring their significance, Professor Eyal Zisser told The Press Service of Israel. Zisser is Tel Aviv University’s vice-rector and has a chair in Contemporary History of the Middle East.
“Haniyeh had no military background. He was a businessman, and compared to Sinwar, everybody is moderate. So I wouldn’t call him moderate, I would say more pragmatic. He still shared Hamas’s views for the destruction of Israel. But Haniyeh was more pragmatic, more ready to reach compromises on the way to the final victory,” Zisser said.
Shukr, on the other hand, was the equivalent of Hezbollah’s Minister of Defense, Zisser said.
According to Dr. Meir Javedanfar, a specialist on Iran who teaches at Reichman University in Herzliya, Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran deeply damages Iranian deterrence, and is very embarrassing in the eyes of the Iranian public.
“First of all, it tells the Iranian regime that Israel will not abide by the red line drawn by Iran on April 13 when they fired all those missiles at us,” Javedanfar told TPS-IL.
“The majority of Iranians are against Iran sending money to Hamas and Hezbollah when there’s so much poverty in Iran. But I think the attack last night was humiliating for the regime because it was somebody who was so important to the Supreme Leader and the Iranian regime could not provide security for him.”
Both agreed that Haniyeh’s death would only hold up ceasefire efforts in the short term.
“It will delay a little bit because Haniyeh was the one that was supposed to handle these issues and negotiate. But in the long run, it wouldn’t change. I don’t think Netanyahu is too interested in reaching a ceasefire and the terms are not accepted by Sinwar. So despite the newspaper reports, they were not very close to a ceasefire,” Zisser told TPS-IL.
Said Javedanfar, “In the short term it could complicate it. But in the long term, I think his assassination means that when Hamas undertakes such an attack, such as October 7th, it carries a price. The price will not only be paid by the people of Gaza and the people of Israel, but the Hamas leadership will also pay a price.”
As for retaliation, Zisser said the two assassinations should not be tied together. Hezbollah will “deal with its issue” and the Palestinians “will deal with their business.”
Israel has not claimed responsibility for killing Haniyeh and the target was a “Palestinian”, which could mitigate Iranian retaliation. But both noted that Haniyeh was killed on Iranian soil.
At least 1,200 people were killed, and 252 Israelis and foreigners were taken hostage in Hamas’s attacks on Israeli communities near the Gaza border on October 7. Of the 115 remaining hostages, 39 have been declared dead. Hamas has also been holding captive two Israeli civilians since 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in 2014.
Nearly 80,000 Israelis were forced to evacuate their homes near the Lebanon border when Hezbollah began launching rockets and drones in October. Hezbollah leaders have said they will continue the attacks to prevent Israelis from returning to their homes. The attacks have killed 25 civilians and 18 soldiers.
Israeli officials have been calling for Hezbollah to be disarmed and removed from southern Lebanon in accordance with UN Security Council resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 Second Lebanon War.
