Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh being assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran early on Wednesday has dealt a heavy blow to peace negotiations to achieve a cease-fire in the Gaza strip after months of fighting and thousands of civilian deaths.
Before the strikes, there were some hopes that Israel and Hamas might have been nearing an agreement to pause the war. The negotiations were mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States. Haniyeh was among the negotiators.
Can killing the negotiator lead to a peaceful solution? The answer is probably no, indicating that Israel’s strategy is against achieving a peaceful solution but rather a military one. The fact that no cease-fire could be reached in 10 months into the war despite the footage of starving children and innocents as well as journalists killed, is speaking for itself on Israel’s aim. It is also known that the political leadership of Hamas was unaware of the planned attack on Israel on Oct. 7.
As Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said, by assassinating Hamas political chief Haniyeh, Israel has also “killed peace.”
If the U.S. or leading negotiators fail to restrain Hamas, Hezbollah or even Iran, violence will go up again – this time with the risk of sparking a regional fight. Considering that peace and talks are not the aim, the killing of Haniyeh might have targeted exactly this scenario. By choosing Tehran as a location, Israel might have tried to provoke a reaction from Iran and escalate the tension. Targeted killings happening in Iraq, Lebanon and now in Iran might also give the message to Hamas that “no place is safe.”
Aiming for escalation, Israel’s strategy could take the context of conflict from “against Palestinians” to a “war between Israel and the Axis of Resistance.” This would guarantee support from the West, especially the U.S. which would see itself drawn into yet another conflict in the Middle East.
The attack on Haniyeh had also another side effect, which was severe damage to the image of Iran and its security structure. Instead of choosing Qatar where the group’s political leaders reside or Türkiye which is often visited by Hamas, the choice of location for the assassination has been Iran. Haniyeh being killed in Tehran, just as security measures were heightened due to the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and dozens of international officials attending, is a significant blow to Iran and its Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). Iran has vowed for “revenge.”
On the other side, it has to be mentioned that Israel has not claimed responsibility for the assassination, which might complicate an official Iranian response to Tel Aviv.
Decapitation as failing strategy
Israel’s policy of targeted killings is nothing new but a strategy that dates back to the 1950s whether it was Palestinians, Hezbollah leaders, or Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders.
Yet both literature and history have shown that decapitation does not work on groups that have a background of decades of presence. The eliminated leader is quickly being replaced by another trained member since the vast structure of such groups allows this. Israel has to acknowledge the fact that Hamas is more than a non-state armed group but rather a political movement embraced by a high percentage of the Palestinians.
As Audrey Kurth Cronin, an expert on the issue, wrote in her book, “If an organization’s cause is well mobilized, enjoying active or passive support among widespread constituencies, then decapitation is unlikely to succeed.”
Another work by Mohammed Hafez and Joseph Hatfield, which analyses the impact of Israel’s decapitation strategy on rates of Palestinian violence from September 2000, the beginning of the Al-Aqsa uprising, through June 2004 also lays bare that these killings have no valuable impact on decreasing violence or achieving peace.
Whatever the impact of Haniyeh’s killing will be on both the war in Gaza and in regional terms, it will be civilians on the field, struggling to survive who will again foot the bill. At a threshold of regional conflict, actors in the Middle East, including Türkiye, have to step up their efforts even more to prevent this outcome.