Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, a key figure in cease-fire negotiations with Israel, was assassinated in Tehran on July 31. He was in Iran for the inauguration of the new president and was killed shortly after meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Haniyeh, 62, was in Iran on a diplomatic visa and was staying at a guesthouse run by the Revolutionary Guards. Reports indicate that he was killed by a missile at around 2am Tehran time, along with his bodyguard.
Both Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of orchestrating the assassination, but Israel has not yet responded to these allegations.
Haniyeh, a long-time head of Hamas’s politburo, was a key figure in the group's diplomatic efforts to negotiate a cease-fire in the Gaza conflict. As a moderate and centrist within Hamas, he played a pivotal role in the group’s development, including overseeing its takeover of Gaza in 2006 and managing the administration of the territory.
Born in 1962 in the Shati refugee camp north of Gaza City, Haniyeh came from a family displaced from what is now Ashkelon in Israel. He was a founding member of Hamas when the group was established in 1988. Haniyeh played a significant role during the first Intifada, which led to his expulsion to southern Lebanon, then under Israeli occupation. In 2006, he became the senior-most Hamas leader in Gaza, the same year the group won parliamentary elections against the Fatah faction, and he briefly served as prime minister. After Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and Hamas's subsequent control of the territory, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh as prime minister due to the West’s refusal to engage with Hamas.
In 2017, Haniyeh was appointed head of Hamas’s political bureau. The following year, the US state department designated him a terrorist. In 2019, Haniyeh moved to Doha, where he led Hamas's international diplomatic efforts. He was succeeded in Gaza by Yahya Sinwar, who is known as one of the key architects of the October 7 attacks on Israel. Recent Israeli strikes had inflicted significant personal losses on Haniyeh, including the deaths of three of his sons and several grandchildren in April, and his sister and her family in June.
Just hours before Haniyeh's assassination, Israeli fighter jets conducted an operation in Beirut’s southern suburbs, killing Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah leader. The two assassinations have rapidly altered the political and security landscape of the Middle East, especially as Israel and Hamas seemed close to reaching a ceasefire after nearly 10 months of intense conflict that has caused tens of thousands of casualties.
The timing of the two assassinations suggests that they might be part of Israel's response to a recent Hezbollah rocket attack on the Golan Heights that resulted in the deaths of 12 Israelis, including children. Alternatively, it could indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may not be fully committed to ending the conflict and could be aiming to prolong it until after the US presidential elections, possibly hoping for a more favourable settlement under a potential Trump administration.
Reports from Israeli newspapers a few weeks ago suggested that Netanyahu was attempting to undermine the peace process by leaking sensitive information about ceasefire proposals, further hinting at a strategy to derail the negotiations.
Following the attacks on Haniyeh and the Hezbollah leader, there are significant concerns about how Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah will respond. The primary worry is Iran’s reaction to the attack on its soil and whether it could lead to a broader regional conflict. Earlier this year, Iran and Israel targeted each other's territories, after an escalation caused by Israel’s assassination of two Iranian generals by a bomb attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus. Given the nature of Haniyeh’s assassination and the loss of face for the Iranian security apparatus, a retaliatory response from Iran seems likely.
According to Iranian officials, Khamenei has ordered a direct strike on Israel at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. He has framed avenging Haniyeh’s death as a duty since the it occurred on Iranian soil. Khamenei has also directed the Revolutionary Guards and the military to be ready in the face of its likely escalation and retaliation from Israel or the United States.
Hamas is expected to swiftly appoint a new leader for its political wing to replace Haniyeh. The group is likely to continue its operations and maintain its organisational structure, as it has several leaders capable of stepping into the role. However, Haniyeh's death could shift Hamas further to the right, leading to more hardline positions. This loss may also hinder Hamas's ability to pursue ceasefire negotiations effectively. The Qassam Brigades, Hamas's military wing, has described the assassination as a significant and potentially dangerous event with broader regional implications, suggesting that Israel has made a strategic miscalculation.
Israel had the capability to kill Haniyeh in Doha, where he lived. It could have done so in Turkey, a country he visited frequently. But it chose to do so in Iran, and that, too, a day after the new president was inaugurated. Since 2019, Haniyeh had visited Iran more than 15 times, but he was never targeted. The attack now is clearly a message, intended to humiliate Iran. In that sense, it conveys the impression that Netanyahu, in fact, wants a wider regional conflict, and he does not want the ongoing war to end. It seems his political survival and his ability to stay out of prison depends on keeping Israel in a prolonged state of war.
Netanyahu has also made it difficult for Iran and the US to start negotiations, during the final days of the Biden presidency. Biden had indicated that one of his priorities in his remaining days as president is to find a lasting solution to the Gaza crisis. The new Iranian president is a reformer, he campaigned on talking to the US, but Haniyeh's assassination makes it virtually impossible for the two sides to move forward.
Except for Netanyahu, it appears to be a loss-loss situation for everyone with a stake in Middle East peace.
