Two big questions after the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh
The Hamas leader’s death adds uncertainty to instability
People hold up the Palestinian flag and a portrait of assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh Hamas, during a rally at Tehran University July 31. Photo by AFP/Getty Images
Senior Columnist Rob Eshman July 31, 2024
Two big questions hang over the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The first is, will it bring Israel and the region closer to peace, or to all-out war?
And there’s a second, no less urgent question: What does it mean for the hostages?
Haniyeh, who was killed in an airstrike in Tehran Wednesday while attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president, was Hamas’ lead negotiator with Israel over a ceasefire.
A Reuters headline called Haniyeh the “more moderate face” of Hamas, which really raises the bar for fanatics.
It was Haniyeh who can be seen on a video grinning from ear to ear as he watches the Oct. 7 attack play out on TV from his residence in Doha, Qatar.
“Let us do a prostration of gratitude,” he tells his companions.
He was a senior leader of Hamas during the Second Intifada, a five-year reign of terror that claimed 700 civilian Israeli lives.
This April, when Haniyeh was informed during a meeting that an Israeli airstrike had killed three of his 13 sons and several of his grandchildren, Haniyeh reportedly folded his hands and continued with the meeting. He later told Al Jazeera: “I thank God for this honor that he bestowed upon us with the martyrdom of my three sons and some grandchildren.”
It was Haniyeh who lectured Palestinians in Gaza — from a TV studio in Qatar — that the blood of “children, women and the elderly” is needed “to ignite within us the spirit of revolution.”
And it was Haniyeh who began his last day on Earth attending a presidential inauguration where the assembled chanted, “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”
You know, a moderate.
But the fact that Haniyeh more than had it coming doesn’t lessen the inevitable consequences. While Israel has not officially claimed credit for the hit, the world knows it was almost certainly responsible for the bold, long-distance operation.
My first thoughts go to the hostages. Will the targeted assassination hasten or delay their freedom?
“The place for the leaders of the Hamas monsters is in hell, and we are all for them paying for their actions,” Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was captured on Oct. 7, told the Israeli daily Haaretz this morning. “But we can’t let Haniyeh’s assassination bring an end to the deal and give a death sentence to our loved ones in captivity.”
It was Yahya Sinwar, not Haniyeh, who masterminded the Oct. 7 massacre, including the hostages’ capture and continued confinement. Sinwar is a political opponent of Haniyeh and very much still alive in some Gaza tunnel. It is hard to see how clearing Sinwar’s path to power would bring him to his knees — or bring Zangauker’s son home.
Instead, Sinwar’s life depends on keeping the hostages close, if only to avoid Haniyeh’s fate. The assassination only reaffirms that evil strategy.
Gazans who awoke to the news no doubt wonder if Haniyeh’s death will enable Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory and bring the war to an end to a war Hamas started that has devastated their homes and families.
But with Sinwar still alive, Netanyahu is unlikely to ease his new conditions for a deal. It may make negotiations far more complicated, since Haniyeh himself was a key interlocutor with international mediators.
And it could very possibly escalate to a regional war.
Iran cannot let an assassination of a foreign leader on its territory go unanswered. Hezbollah has freshly vowed revenge for Israel’s targeted assassination one day earlier of Fuad Sjukr, the commander responsible for the missile attack on Majdal Shams. And Turkey’s leader Recep Erdogan threatened military action against Israel if the war in Gaza continues.
Despite all this, Israelis were celebrating Haniyeh’s assassination by handing out candy in the streets as social media lit up with victory tweets from Israel supporters.
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.
“War is not unavoidable,” said Zisser, “if you make an effort to contain it. It’s up to the two sides not to make terrible mistakes, and let’s hope they don’t, because nobody will gain from it.”
After the deaths of Yassin and al-Rantisi, a then-lower level official named Ismail Haniyeh said, “Hamas might have a crisis on its hands after losing its leaders.”
So might we all.
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