Israel's history of assassinations: full sound and fury, but what does it really signify?

In a region already balancing on a knife's edge of tension and hostilities, last week's dual assassinations of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut by Israeli forces have threatened to engulf the broader Middle East in all-out war. Carried out within hours of one another, the dual killings — one via rocket strike, the other with a bomb planted months in advance — are just the latest in a long and storied line of Israeli cross-border assassinations against high-profile targets around the world. While the full history of Israel's targeted assassination program may never become fully public, the country's various clandestine agencies have for years been feared, revered, and reviled in equal measure for their skills at striking seemingly anyone, anywhere. 

As demonstrated by last week's killings, however, the full impact of Israel's assassination operations is decidedly less certain. Although the country is clearly adept at these types of clandestine missions, the fact that it has perfected those skills for so long suggests a disconnect between its immediate tactical goals and its long-term needs. As the world waits to see how Hezbollah and Hamas will react to these latest killings, what has Israel's history of assassinations accomplished in the past? And is there any reason to think that things might be different this time around? 

'Committed to settling accounts'

"For decades" Israel's message to potential foes has been "loud and clear: Hit us, and you will die," The Times of Israel said. It's a sentiment expressed most recently by government adviser Mark Regev, who pledged vengeance, whether "it takes a year or five years, or 25 years," during a CNN interview just days after the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. Anyone involved in harming the hostages taken into Gaza, "Israel will find them and there will be retribution." Israel is "committed to settling accounts," David Barnea, head of the Mossad Israeli secret service said in January, comparing any subsequent assassinations to the country's response to the "Munich massacre" after which Israeli forces killed members of the Black September terrorist group involved in the murder of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics. 

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Those stated aims of retribution suggest goals tied as much to catharsis as they are about producing a tactical outcome. Studies have suggested that targeted killings "have no effect on insurgency violence in Palestine," said Indiana University Professor Jeff Gruenewald in 2017. Indeed, on occasion it can even be counterproductive to other national goals. Israeli efforts to assassinate Hamas figures behind the Oct. 7 attack are "likely complicating hostage and cease-fire negotiations," said David Meidan, a former top Mossad intelligence officer, to Politico earlier this year. 

'Trying to change something in the moment'

"I believe very strongly that some targeted assassinations make more sense and some make no sense at all," said Matthew Levitt, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank. The rocket attack on Hezbollah's Shukr "upsets their whole operational structure, because it affects the command and might inhibit further attacks in that sense in the longer term," whereas Haniyeh's death was "just supposed to say we're holding people accountable."

For all of Israel's high-profile assassinations across the past half century, "even after initially being hailed as a game-changing victory," the end result has largely been a "killed leader being replaced by someone more determined, adept and hawkish," Al Jazeera said. The killing of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004 resulted in the ascension of Khalid Meshal, a "more hawkish figure" who ultimately "took control of Hamas and moved the group closer to Iran." After multiple assassination attempts, Meshal "remains a senior figure in Hamas," The Washington Post said.  Accordingly, there is "little reason to believe" that Israel's most recent attacks on Hamas and Hezbollah leadership will "make these groups less formidable foes to Israel," Al Jazeera concluded. 

If none of these types of attacks will ultimately end groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, what is the point? Israel, per Levitt, is merely "trying to change something in the moment."