Israel has proven it can kill massive numbers of Palestinian civilians and assassinate political leaders, but it has been unable to defeat an armed insurgency in Gaza.

Jul 31, 2024

At approximately 2 a.m. local time, Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran in an apparent Israeli strike. It is not yet known what precise weapons were used, but Iran’s semi-official Fars News Agency described it as a “projectile.” The U.S. has denied it was aware of the strike beforehand, though it is unlikely any American officials would publicly confirm prior knowledge—not to mention involvement—in the assassination.

“This is something we were not aware of or involved in. It’s very hard to speculate,” said Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is on an official visit to Singapore.

“I don’t have anything on that for you,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said during a press briefing aboard a Navy ship in the Philippines when asked if the U.S. had advance knowledge or notice of the strike.

Haniyeh, who traveled from Doha, Qatar to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian, was killed alongside a bodyguard inside a housing development used by veterans of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. He has been a central figure in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations. “How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” asked Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, one of the top officials mediating the ceasefire talks.

While Israel has not yet issued an official statement, with the attack, it has reinforced the message that it speaks with the language of force above all else. Its actions over the past 24 hours are likely to encourage deeper collaboration among Axis of Resistance forces—which include Iran, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen—and its Palestinian factions.

Haniyeh’s assassination was conducted just hours after Israel bombed a building in a southern suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, killing at least four people, two children and two women, and injuring dozens of others. Hezbollah has not officially confirmed the death of senior commander Fuad Shukr but said he was in the building when it was struck. Israel claimed that Shukr was the commander of a rocket strike that killed 12 Syrian Druze children on Saturday in the occupied Golan Heights town of Majdal Shams. The U.S. has accused Shukr of playing a key role in the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut that killed more than 300 people, including 241 U.S. military personnel.

Hezbollah has vehemently denied it was behind the attack and said the deaths were caused by an Israeli Iron Dome interceptor missile that missed its target. Hezbollah said it is waiting for civil defense rescue workers to finish their operations at the bombed building to determine its specific military response to Israel.

U.S. Defense Secretary Austin spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant after Haniyeh’s assassination, but a statement from Gallant’s office only referenced the strike in Lebanon and made no mention of Haniyeh’s killing. “They discussed the threats to Israel posed by a range of Iranian-backed terrorist groups, including Lebanese Hizballah,” according to a Pentagon read out, which also avoided reference to Haniyeh’s assassination. “Secretary Austin reaffirmed his unwavering commitment to Israel’s security and right to self-defense.”

Condemnations of Haniyeh’s assassination have poured in from all Palestinian factions and from Axis of Resistance members who have vowed to retaliate. “The criminal, terrorist zionist entity has brought upon itself the severest punishment with this attack,” said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. “Avenging the blood of Haniyeh is Iran’s duty because he was martyred on our land.” The IRGC released a statement promising that “this crime by the zionist regime will be met with a severe and painful response from the powerful and grand resistance front, especially the Islamic [Republic of] Iran.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s deputy leader Mohammed Al-Hindi said in an official statement that the assassination “is not only directed at the Palestinian resistance and Hamas specifically, but also at Iran.” He added: “The Palestinian resistance and the resistance in Lebanon have bid farewell to many great figures without their martyrdom breaking them.” Several Palestinian armed factions called on their supporters to intensify their operations against Israel in the West Bank. Since October 7, according to opinion polls, support for both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have risen dramatically across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Hezbollah released a statement, saying that the assassination of Haniyeh “will increase the determination and persistence of the resisting fighters in all resistance arenas to continue the path of jihad and will strengthen their resolve in facing the zionist enemy, the killer of women and children, the perpetrator of genocide in Gaza, and the usurper of Palestine’s land and the nation’s sanctities.”

Many commentators on Arab media outlets and on social media are questioning what role, if any, the U.S. played in the Haniyeh hit. The Iranian foreign ministry said it holds both Israel and the U.S. responsible for the strike. Despite official denials from American political officials, it is highly likely U.S. intelligence was, at a minimum, aware of Israel’s assassination plot against Haniyeh in Tehran. If so, the central question is what the U.S. saw as the likely outcome or response from Iran and other regional forces.

The Biden administration has made a substantial public display in recent days of promoting the notion that a Gaza ceasefire is within reach, despite statements to the contrary by Israel and Hamas. CIA Director William Burns was in Rome Sunday for talks with Israel and mediators from Qatar and Egypt. In his comments in Singapore today following Haniyeh’s assassination, Blinken appeared disconnected from how the events of the past 24 hours are being interpreted on the ground. “One of the things that we’ve been focused on is trying to make sure that the conflict that occurred in Gaza doesn’t escalate,” he said. “We’re going to continue to do that as well. Now, again, the best way to bring the temperature down everywhere is through the cease-fire in Gaza.”

Assassinating Haniyeh, perhaps the most important member of Hamas’s negotiating team, fits within Israel’s narrative that the only way to achieve an end to the Gaza war is to force Hamas to surrender militarily. To most of the rest of the world, the assassination of a lead negotiator for a potential peace deal is certainly viewed as a bloody sabotage of multinational efforts to end the genocidal war. Russia, China, and Turkey all issued statements condemning the political assassination.

There has been discussion within the Biden administration of whether killing Yahya Sinwar, the Gaza chief of Hamas, would allow Israel to claim some form of victory that would pave the way for Israel accepting a ceasefire. In May, administration officials leaked a story to the Washington Post that the White House had offered Israel “sensitive intelligence to help the Israeli military pinpoint the location of Hamas leaders” in return for concessions from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the scope of the Rafah invasion.

It is possible U.S. officials may believe they can use Haniyeh’s death in an effort to convince Netanyahu to agree to a temporary pause in fighting to exchange captives. But with the U.S. presidency up for grabs, Biden out of the race, and the prospect of Donald Trump returning to the White House, it is unclear what leverage the administration actually has within its self-declared parameters of “ironclad” support for Israel. In reality, the U.S could have ended the slaughter in Gaza long ago by cutting off all weapons and logistical support to Israel, something neither Biden, Kamala Harris nor Trump would even contemplate.

In recent days, Hamas has accused Netanyahu and Israel of sabotaging a ceasefire. While it has also blamed the U.S. for the continuation of the war and abetting Israel’s obstructionist stance in the negotiations, it has stopped short of withdrawing from the process. It has not yet issued any detailed statement about how Haniyeh’s death may impact the negotiations.

Israel has proven it can kill massive numbers of Palestinian civilians and assassinate Palestinian political leaders. Yet Israel’s occupation army has been unable to defeat an armed insurgency in Gaza that largely manufactures its own weapons and operates under constant attack from U.S. bombs and a modern military.

Hamas is not going to surrender because Haniyeh was assassinated. Israel has waged a multi-decade campaign of targeted killings of its military and political leaders. Over this period, the group has grown larger and more bold, culminating in the Hamas-led October 7 attacks against Israel, known as Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. “These crimes will only increase our strength, steadfastness, and unwavering determination,” Hamas said in a statement. “This is the history of the movement and the resistance after the assassination of its leaders: they become stronger, more cohesive, more determined and persistent in their rights and principles.”

The Palestinian armed resistance movements are not inspired by or run by one individual or group. It is more likely that this assassination and the bombing in Lebanon will further embolden Palestinian resistance factions. That may well be Netanyahu’s intent if he believes the U.S. will continue to arm and support him in his wars of annihilation no matter the cost to Palestinian lives. It is not an unreasonable assumption given the full spectrum support Israel has received from the Biden administration over the past 10 months.

A funeral for Haniyeh will be held Thursday in Tehran, according to Hamas, before his burial in Qatar on Friday. Hamas is expected to name a new leader of its political bureau. Sinwar, who is widely believed to still be alive and in Gaza, will certainly have a hand in the decision. Among possible successors could be former Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.

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