The three assassinations that changed the Middle East - analysis

In a dizzying three weeks, Israel has assassinated three titans of terrorism, although only officially taking credit for two. These operations, in and of themselves, have altered the trajectory of the ongoing war and of the Middle East even beyond the current war.

Jerusalem’s hope has been to reshape the balance of power to restore a more secure ceasefire and regional quiet. But these moves have also put the region closer to spiraling into a larger war than at any other moment to date.

The first was Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif, who was assassinated by Israel by airstrikes in Khan Yunis in southern Gaza on July 13, although the IDF only officially confirmed his death last Thursday.

Intelligence information, likely from human spying or electronic spying – even though the IDF declined to divulge details – picked up the key confirmation on Thursday morning.

Deif’s killing is not only a body slam to Hamas’s morale for the immediate future, as he was their most “heroic” military figure for more than the last decade, but there is a much more significant long-term impact. Deif’s death, more than any other Hamas official, leaves the Gazan terrorist group without a national military manager to retrain and reconstitute its forces if and when the current war ends.

Being that the IDF has killed between two-thirds to 75% of Hamas’s senior- and mid-level management in its military, Deif had become more important than ever as one of the few remaining Hamas military strategists who would have had the capability to quickly retrain the next generation of Hamas commanders.

Hamas could still reconstitute itself as a military force if Israel fails to replace it as a political force in Gaza, but the process would take much longer, possibly years longer, without Deif.

Hezbollah and the death of Shukr

Last week, Israel took credit for assassinating Hezbollah military chief Fuad Shukr by a drone strike in Beirut. Shukr was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s main military adviser.

As with Hamas, Israel has eliminated more than half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon.

In addition, around 90% of Hezbollah’s forces in southern Lebanon have fled, and close to 100% of its lookout posts there have been eliminated – some of them multiple times when Hezbollah tried to rebuild.

So, killing Shukr was not just a blow to Hezbollah’s morale and immediate operations; it also damaged its long-term capabilities for rebuilding its forces in southern Lebanon near Israel’s border.

Moreover, killing Shukr was a message to Nasrallah that he could easily be next, and that Beirut will no longer be an area receiving immunity if Hezbollah kills any sizable number of Israeli civilians.

This lays much clearer redlines down for Hezbollah for what kinds of attacks Israel will or will not “tolerate” on its soil in the current low-intensity conflict standoff.

The third assassination was Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed within hours of Shukr while visiting top Iranian officials in Tehran.

While Israel has not taken credit for the assassination formally, many Israeli officials commented on the killing in a way that left little doubt about who was responsible.

Unlike the killings of Deif and Shukr, which also could have made an Israeli-Hamas hostage deal and ceasefire more likely by taking off the board two senior officials of Hamas and Hezbollah who were seen as potentially being against a deal, killing Haniyeh delays any deal and ceasefire.

Hamas post-Haniyeh assassination 

Haniyeh was the primary negotiator with Qatar and the US, even as Hamas Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar makes the final decisions because he controls the Israeli hostages deep in his underground tunnel world in Gaza.

Also, while there is a disagreement about who was more pragmatic, some argued that at least recently, Haniyeh was believed to be more pragmatic than Sinwar.

Since the Israeli government still wants to get the hostages back through a deal, Haniyeh’s killing was only partially directed at Hamas – in the sense of trying to convince Sinwar that all of Hamas’s leadership could be killed if he does not compromise soon on some of the issues still in dispute.

The much more important address of killing Haniyeh, however, was in fact Iran.

Israel, presuming it killed Haniyeh, wanted to send a message to the Islamic Republic that its patience is wearing thin for Tehran using proxies to try to bloody Israel, while the ayatollahs think they can sit watching from the sidelines untouched.

Until now, and although experts universally agree that Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s confrontations with Israel have been bankrolled, inspired, and often planned in Tehran, the only time since October 7 that Israel struck Iran in its territory was on April 19 in what most considered to be a modest response to a massive attempted attack by Tehran five days earlier.

Iran had launched about 350 aerial threats, including ballistic missiles, drones, and cruise missiles, whereas Jerusalem’s retaliation sufficed with one pinpoint strike to destroy the Islamic Republic’s S-300 antiaircraft missile system, central to protecting its nuclear site at Natanz.

Observers were split about whether Israel’s pinpoint attack, which showed that it could easily have struck Iran’s nuclear program at Natanz as a warning shot, had restored a balance of deterrence with Tehran or whether the ayatollahs viewed the Jewish state’s counterstrike as weak in light of the vast attack they had brought down on Israel.

After Iranian proxies from Yemen recently killed an Israeli in a Tel Aviv drone strike and Hezbollah killed 12 Israeli Druze, it seemed that Iran had not gotten the message and felt it still had impunity.

Taking out Haniyeh while he was in Tehran was an unmistakable signal to disabuse Iran of the notion that it has immunity when it uses proxies to harm Israel.

So, Israel has in three weeks, with three attacks, set back Hamas’s and Hezbollah’s current and, more importantly, future military rebuilding capabilities. Furthermore, the ayatollahs now know that if their proxies cross redlines, the retaliation may end up on Tehran’s doorstep and not just against its proxies.

Whether these high-stake attacks will lead to a much larger war between Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah, or whether it will eventually bring Tehran to help bring its proxies to a ceasefire with Israel, is still an open question.