Two Assassinations and a Transformed War Israel just took out Hamas and Hezbollah leaders deep inside enemy territory. Now Iran is threatening to retaliate. What comes next? Jonathan Schanzer
The past 48 hours have been the most dramatic and consequential of any since Hamas’s war against Israel began on October 7, 2023. More than that: they could reverse the momentum of this war which, until now, has been dictated by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies.
Let’s review the news:
On July 30, as the sun began to set in Beirut, Israel launched a precision air strike on Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah military commander. The strike took place in the Dahiyeh neighborhood, which is Hezbollah’s stronghold in the city. Shukr was wanted for decades by U.S. authorities for his role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 U.S. military personnel. But the proximate reason for this hit was Hezbollah’s Saturday rocket attack in northern Israel, which killed 12 Druze children on a soccer field. Milad Bidi, an adviser to the Iranian regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, was also killed in Israel’s strike.
Less than ten hours later, more dramatic news came out of Tehran: Israel eliminated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, making him the highest-ranking Hamas official to be killed since the war began. Most significant was how and where he was hit. Haniyeh was taken out in his Tehran apartment in the middle of the night. Yesterday, veteran Israeli journalist Ehud Yaari reported the missile that felled Haniyeh was not launched from the air. According to a New York Times report, Mossad smuggled a bomb into Haniyeh’s home months ago, only to detonate it remotely when the time was right.
These were by far the most high profile of Israel’s strikes on Iranian-backed terror groups and their leadership since October 7. But these are not the only ones.
Earlier this month, on July 13, the IDF struck Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s top military commander. Deif met his end in an air strike in Mouasi—an area along the Gaza coast—where he attempted to blend in with Palestinians seeking refuge from the destructive war that he himself directed. Deif is credited for transforming Hamas from a tactical annoyance into a terror group that has pushed the Middle East to the brink of a regional war.
So what does all of this mean?
Start with Hamas:
With the death of Deif, Haniyeh, and a handful of other senior leaders, Hamas is no longer the formidable terror group that it was on October 7. The top leadership is thinning out. The group has lost more than two-thirds of its fighting force in Gaza and is significantly weakened. One key Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, remains alive, and is believed to be hiding in the tunnels beneath Gaza. A tunnel is very likely where he will meet his end.
Between the demise of the Hamas leadership and the loss of more than two-thirds of its fighting force in Gaza, Hamas is undeniably reeling. But the most meaningful development in Gaza has gone remarkably unreported. The Israelis now control the Philadelphi Corridor, which is the border area connecting Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula to the Gaza Strip. More importantly, the Israelis now control the tunnels that lie beneath it. For most of the war, those tunnels enabled Hamas to bring weapons, cash, and materiel from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula into the Gaza Strip. Those days are over. In the meantime, Israel continues to get the better of Hamas in virtually every clash.
All of this flies in the face of the conventional wisdom touted by the so-called experts early in the war. Some warned that this would be Israel’s “forever war” and said that thousands of Israeli soldiers would be killed. But Israel’s majority-reservist army defied those experts and their expectations. Others insisted that it was impossible to defeat Hamas because Hamas was an idea. But when the most visible champions of the “Hamas idea” are killed in the heart of Tehran, or even on the battlefields of Gaza, that argument starts to unravel.
Hamas may never be fully dismantled. Pockets of insurgency will likely persist in Gaza for years to come. But the hard fighting may soon be over. This would be good news for Israel, but there will be no time to celebrate: the IDF is already pivoting to the war in the north, where the battle with Hezbollah waits.
As for Iran:
The regime in Tehran has been pleased with the way the war has gone so far. The Iranians have been fighting Israel to the last Arab. In other words: Iran’s proxies in Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen have done all the fighting for the Islamic Republic. So even if Hamas is seriously weakened, the other proxies will continue the war while the ayatollahs observe the fighting from the safety and comfort of their homes many miles away.
The assassination of Haniyeh, however, was a wake-up call. Israel demonstrated that it had the ability to target its enemies with pinpoint accuracy—and with lethality—inside Iran. This theoretically means that Israel could target the regime’s leaders just as easily.
Still, it would be an error to think that Iran’s strategy will change. Why? Because the regime in Tehran knows that Israel cannot sustain an extended war of attrition. The regime knows that Israel lacks the strategic depth, not to mention munitions—both offensive weapons and missile defense—to fight for months on end.
The regime is also no doubt delighting in the tension this war has created between the Biden White House and Israel. It’s no secret that Israel relies on the United States for the majority of its munitions and weapons (everything from 500-pound bombs and precision-guided munitions to Iron Dome interceptors).
Motivated by a desire to prevent a full-scale regional war, the White House has slowed or withheld some weapons shipments to Israel in recent months. But this has had the opposite effect to the one the Biden administration intended. Rather than preventing conflict, the Iranian axis has viewed this as a splendid opportunity to fight Israel while the Jewish state had its hands tied.
If the U.S. continues to pursue this approach, it’s only good news for Iran.
And for Israel:
In the immediate aftermath of the October 7 attacks, Israel was paralyzed and traumatized. Israel no longer looked like the military and tech powerhouse it was believed to be. The men and women who had been entrusted to guarantee the safety of the country’s ten million citizens—the most fundamental responsibility of any government—failed.
Though the younger generation dusted themselves off and took the fight to the terrorist group that had slaughtered an estimated 1,200 and kidnapped another 250 of their fellow citizens, their government did not display the same discipline or resolve. The Netanyahu government made promises—the return of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas—but offered no coherent strategy of how to achieve those aims. If anything, Netanyahu appeared to be fighting on Iran’s terms.
That may have changed on Tuesday night. Israel is regaining some of its swagger. If the military and intelligence services can continue to strike the leaders of the Iranian axis, the momentum may continue to shift. The Iranians can still be convinced that the price of continuing to fight this war is higher than what they were willing to pay at the beginning.
Admittedly, the war cannot be won on decapitation strikes alone. The Israelis need to harness the hatred that the Iranian public harbors for their regime. Economic pressure from the United States and our allies could also turn the screws on the regime. Cyber attacks are not off the table, either.
In the meantime, Israelis are bracing for what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned will be “challenging days” ahead. If Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei follows through with his order to directly strike Israel, “challenging” might prove to be an understatement. Netanyahu says Israel is “ready for every scenario.” Let’s hope so.
Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the author of Hamas vs. Fatah: The Struggle for Palestine. Follow him on X @JSchanzer.
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