The airstrikes on the Hamas political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran early on Wednesday morning, and on the Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut late on Tuesday were the latest in a series of targeted assassinations across the region.
Israel, which has not claimed responsibility for both attacks, has vowed to kill all Hamas leaders responsible for the 7 October 2023 attack and go after senior commanders from Iran and its militant allies.
Some of the strikes inside Gaza have caused high civilian tolls and attacks beyond the borders of Israel and occupied Palestine risk escalating a complex regional proxy war towards full blown conflict. Israel says it will take all steps to protect its citizens and ensure its defence.
However, analysts warn tactical success in identifying targets and carrying out complex targeted attacks at long range does not guarantee strategic victory. Israel has been taking out Hamas leaders for decades, but the group has been able to replace them and survive.
Below are some of the high-profile assassinations claimed by or attributed to Israel since 7 October.
31 October 2023
Ibrahim Biari – confirmed dead. The commander of Hamas’s central Jabaliya battalion, he oversaw all military operations in the northern Gaza Strip after the Israel Defense Forces began their campaign in the territory.
The attack on a crowded urban residential area, in the mid-afternoon, came without warning and killed at least 126 civilians, the Wall Street Journal reported.
25 December 2023
Razi Mousavi – confirmed dead. A high-ranking general in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Mousavi was responsible for coordinating the military alliance between Syria and Iran.
He was killed in an airstrike on his residence in Sayyidah Zaynab, a southern Damascus suburb.
2 January 2024
Saleh al-Arouri – confirmed dead. A senior Hamas leader, a founding commander of its military wing and regarded as the principal interlocutor between Hamas and Hezbollah.
He was killed in a missile strike on a Hamas office in a southern Beirut suburb, along with two other Hamas commanders.
A key figure in the group, seen as close to Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in the Gaza Strip, he was influential in the West Bank where he was born and also an important figure in the group’s financial network. At the time, the most senior Hamas figure killed by Israel.
10 March 2024
Marwan Issa – confirmed dead. The deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing in Gaza and one of the masterminds of the 7 October attacks. He was killed in an airstrike on a tunnel complex under the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
1 April 2024
Mohammad Reza Zahedi – confirmed dead. A senior officer in the IRGC, he commanded the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon.
Zahedi was killed by an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus. He was the highest ranking Iranian killed since Qassem Soleimani died in a US drone strike in 2020 and had previously commanded the IRGC’s aerospace force and ground forces.
Iran responded by launching one of the biggest missile and drone attacks in military history towards Israel. Most of the weapons were intercepted and only one person was killed by falling debris.
13 July 2024
Mohammed Deif – not confirmed dead. Israel claimed it killed Deif, the mastermind of the attacks on 7 October, in a strike on Khan Younis, southern Gaza. Hamas says he survived.
Deif, 58, has been on Israel’s most-wanted list since 1995 and escaped multiple Israeli assassination attempts.
The airstrike killed at least 90 other people and injured more than 300 others, health authorities said.
