administrations and other governments around the world.
For Israel, the calculus is simple: Hit us, and you will pay a price. And as long as that message remains clear, Israel’s enemies will think twice before launching attacks.
As the dust settles on the most recent round of violence, the question remains: Will the killings of Haniyeh and Shukr deter future attacks, or will they simply be seen as the latest chapter in an endless cycle of violence?
Some assassinations of obscure figures are meant to achieve a goal rather than make a point, said Harel Chorev, a senior researcher at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University. He pointed to the 2010 assassination in the United Arab Emirates of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, an otherwise unknown Hamas operative responsible for smuggling weapons into the Gaza Strip. Israel did not publicly acknowledge a role in the killing.
“He was a nobody,” he said. ”But then we found out that he was a major pipeline to Iran: He was channeling the money and a major player in the connection between Iran and Hamas.”
Chorev likened the people ordering assassinations to snipers, who are habituated to taking out the most senior officers in their sightline, under the logic that eliminating the person giving orders is the most effective way of hobbling the enemy on the battlefield.
“Nobody will ask, ‘Hey, why did you do this?’” of snipers in battle, he said. “It would be obvious that these are the right targets that snipers should search for.”
Another salutary effect of the Haniyah killing, analysts say, is on an Israeli population devastated by 10 months of war, and the massive governmental, military and intelligence failure that took place on Oct. 7.
“It’s a huge morale boost for Israelis and reasserts confidence in Israeli intelligence and military capabilities,” said David Halperin, the CEO of the Israel Policy Forum, a group that favors the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.
Shira Efron, IPF’s senior director of policy research, said the assassinations send a message — but one that has an expiration date.
“They sent a message, that we have intelligence, that we have operational capabilities, that your lives are broken, that you’re very permeable,” she said.
“But in the long term, and I’m sorry to say this, it may take more time or less time, but we eventually see that leaders or commanders in those organizations seem to be quite fungible. They’re always replaced,” Efron added. “They don’t say, ‘Oh, you know what, we got it. We’re going to lay our arms down.’ The next person, the next guy — it’s always a guy — is going to be on the same page as the last guy.”