In recent weeks, Israel has been on an assassination spree, killing several senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders in quick succession. However, there is reason to believe that these killings, widely celebrated as a show of power, will serve to embolden these groups and will prove detrimental to Israel’s security and the long-term stability of the region.
The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran’s capital Tehran on Wednesday, for example, silenced a moderating voice in Hamas’s leadership and likely led the group to take an even tougher and less compromising stance against Israel. Head of the group’s political wing, Haniyeh was widely seen as a pragmatic political operator. He had negotiated ceasefires in the past and was trying to achieve another one before he was killed.
We’ve seen in the past how a high-profile assassination can have a hardening effect on the group.
Twenty years ago, in March 2004, Israel murdered Elderly, wheelchair-bound founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, as he left a mosque in Gaza City after dawn prayers. Under Yassin’s watch, Hamas was aligned with Saudi Arabia and had limited access to high-quality weaponry.
After the death of Yassin Khalid Meshal, a more aggressive figure took control of Hamas and moved the group closer to Iran. Unlike the Saudis, Iran was willing to provide Hamas with rocket designs and other military technologies. When Haniyeh took over the political leadership role from Meshal in 2017, Hamas was fully under Iranian influence and had built a formidable arsenal of high-quality weaponry.
The same thing happened when Israel attacked the leader of Hezbollah.
In 1992, Israel assassinated Hezbollah’s secretary general, Abbas al-Musawi, along with his wife and six-year-old son in southern Lebanon. The deaths only strengthened the group’s resolve. Al-Musawi’s successor, Hassan Nasrallah, turned out to be much more charismatic, eloquent and effective. He significantly increased the group’s power and regional influence. Nasrallah was also responsible for the rise of Fuad Shukr, the Hezbollah commander believed to be responsible for obtaining most of the group’s most advanced weapons, from precision-guided missiles to long-range rockets.
The day before Haniyeh’s assassination in Tehran, Israel assassinated Shukr in Beirut. And on Thursday, he claimed to have killed Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif in an airstrike in southern Gaza on July 13.
Looking at the unintended consequences of past assassinations, there is little reason to believe that the death of any military commander, or of Haniyeh for that matter, would make these groups any less formidable enemies of Israel.
History shows that each Israeli assassination of a high-level political or military operator, even after initially being hailed as a revolutionary victory, eventually led to the replacement of the dead leader with someone more determined, skillful and aggressive.
In fact, Israel’s counterterrorism strategy over the past 40 years, which has been highly dependent on assassinations, has turned out to be a colossal strategic failure.
The assassination of al-Musawi in 1992, for example, was considered by many to be a strategic error on Israel’s part, even before it happened. In his book Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Killings, Ronen Bergman documents how even some Israeli military figures opposed the assassination, believing that “Hezbollah was not a one-man show, and Musawi was not the most extremist man in its leadership” and warning that “he would be replaced, perhaps by someone more radical ”.
Of course, they were right.
Under al-Musawi, Hezbollah was a small militia. Its most powerful weapon was suicide bombings and it was unable to effectively repel the Israeli military from Lebanese territory. Once Nasrallah took over, he tasked Shukr with intensifying the group’s efforts and organizing sophisticated operations. guerrilla attacks, including rocket attacks, over Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Shukr’s attacks forced the Israelis to withdraw in 2000, marking their first defeat against an Arab military force.
However, Israel did not learn its lesson about assassinations after al-Musawi’s assassination led to Nasrallah’s rise to power. In 2003, he attempted to murder Yassin and his then assistant, Haniyeh. They narrowly escaped a building in Gaza City before it was destroyed by an Israeli airstrike. A year later, Israel managed to kill Yassin, leading to the rise of Meshal, who pushed Hamas into an alliance with Iran, which proved disastrous for Israel.
It is not surprising – in fact, it is almost expected – that when Israel kills a political or military leader from Hezbollah or Hamas, he is replaced by a more hard-line leader, seeking revenge rather than compromise.
History will probably repeat itself. Meshal is now expected to return to power as Haniyeh’s replacement. He is likely to be much less flexible in his negotiations with the Israelis.
Israel’s assassinations often have adverse consequences, as well as paving the way for more hard-line leaders, and these latest ones are no different.
By killing Haniyeh in Tehran, for example, Israel prompted Iran to strike back.
In April, when Israel assassinated two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals at Iran’s diplomatic facilities in Damascus, Tehran retaliated by firing a salvo of 300 Iranian drones and ballistic and cruise missiles, the first state to attack Israel in the 21st century. Despite all the help he received from his powerful Western allies and Arab neighbors, at least five ballistic missiles breached Israel’s defenses.
Israel has now struck a high-profile target in Tehran, in an open insult to Iran’s sovereignty. By this act, it has also communicated its ability to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Iran is obliged to restore deterrence.
Furthermore, Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was touted as a leader who could direct Iran toward the West. The assassination gave Iranian hardliners skeptical of rapprochement a reason to undermine the new president’s vision a day after he took office.
Ultimately, with its high-profile assassinations, Israel won a symbolic victory, but it also emboldened its adversaries to take more aggressive stances and prepare the region for a wider war.
Over the past 40 years, Israel has insisted on trying to weaken the non-state actors who stage attacks against its forces and people, assassinating their leaders, rather than addressing the root causes of political violence, such as occupation, apartheid , the failure of governance, the loss of hope, despair and anger among Palestinians. The aftermath of October 7th was another missed opportunity for Israel to change direction. The assassinations have only served to embolden, anger and make more determined Israel’s enemies in the past, and will continue to do so in the present.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.
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