In a brazen and unprecedented attack, Israeli defence forces carried out the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, in Tehran on 31 July. The manner of attack is as yet unknown, but the cause of death was an explosion which killed Haniyeh and his bodyguard, only hours after Haniyeh had attended a meeting with the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei.
Israel has not yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but the motives could not be clearer. The IDF and Israeli Government are still dogmatically seeking an end to the conflict through further violence. Peace in the Middle East, if it was ever whole before that October 7 Attack, has been shattered even further now, the already volatile situation in the region intensified further. The assassination has heightened tensions between Israel and its adversaries, particularly Iran, the benefactor of all the factions currently warring with Israel. All of this is set against the backdrop of a growing hellscape in Gaza, where nearly 40,000 people have been killed, mostly women and children. There will be no peace achieved through the continuing perpetration of a massacre against innocents, but Israel, in all its wisdom, seems determined to try and do just that.
Haniyeh, one of the central strategists behind Hamas’s historic armed resistance against Israel, allegedly masterminded the October 7 attack, the spark of the continually widening regional wildfire. Haniyeh was also reportedly a vocal advocate for continuing rocket strikes from Gaza into Israeli territory before October 7, and has long been at the top of Israel’s hit-list. The Israelis claim his assassination has weakened Hamas’s leadership and disrupted its operations, but Hamas will not remain rudderless for long. This particular snake cannot be killed simply by cutting off the head, and more than that, they have created another martyr for the Palestinians and Israel’s other foes in the region, as if the Palestinian cause did not have martyrs enough already.
Nonetheless, Haniyeh was a central figure in not just Hamas’s military operations, but its political operations as well. He was a former Prime Minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, and his death, despite renewing calls for resistance against Israel within Palestine, will no doubt be a major blow to Hamas. It will not be enough to bring peace. No further act of violence will be enough for that.
Hamas was a major beneficiary or Iranian support, both committed to the destruction of Israel and the reunification of the Israel-Palestine region under the Palestinian flag. Haniyeh’s assassination took place inside Iranian territory, inside their capital city. The risk of all-out war between Iran and Israel is already more likely than not, but this has only added fuel to the fire.
Khamenei has condemned Israel’s actions, reaffirming Iran’s support for the Palestinian cause and promising to retaliate indirectly through its proxies. Fire has already been exchanged between the two nations, but the rare restraint each nation desired to show after April 13 saved the Middle East from any explosion of war between the two nations. Haniyeh’s assassination has given Iran another reason not to show restraint, and has redoubled Iran’s intentions to continue supplying military assistance to Hamas for as long as Israel attacks Gaza.
Not only does Haniyeh’s killing secure further Iranian aid for Hamas, but also for Iran’s other anti-Israel proxies on Israel’s doorstep. Hezbollah in Lebanon to the north is far larger and far better equipped than Hamas, and they have the capacity to open new fronts in the conflict. Israel is already struggling to root out Hamas from Gaza, but multi-front warfare against both Hamas and Hezbollah, a force far more capable of symmetrical warfare with Israel than Hamas, could have devastating consequences for the entire region.
Since Haniyeh was killed last week, Israel has been intensifying air strikes on Gaza. The humanitarian situation is already unimaginably dire, but Israel is indicating that it will not be satisfied until the entire territory has been reduced to ash and rubble, with the people in the way seen as just that; in the way.
Israel states that it is targeting Hamas locations, but Hamas continued to sequester itself amongst civilians and within civilian infrastructure. These renewed strikes have caused civilian casualties to rise sharply since Haniyeh’s death, according to not just the Hamas-run health ministry, but human rights organisations on the ground as well. Hundreds more men, women, and children have been killed or injured in the airstrikes, while thousands more have been displaced from their homes to flee to squalid and under-resourced refugee camps within Gaza.
The Israeli blockade has been in place against Gaza since 2007, and access to food, water, fuel, and other essentials is drying up ever more rapidly. Hospitals are overwhelmed with the rising number of casualties, while a lack of medical supplies and power shortages make it nearly impossible to provide adequate care for the injured. Meanwhile, basic infrastructure, including schools, homes, and water supplies, has been destroyed in the bombardments, pushing Gaza’s 2 million residents further into despair. No-where is safe in Gaza, just how Israel wants it to be.
Hamas won’t give up this fight, even as the Gazan people suffer and die around them. Hamas hoards food and fuel for itself, hell-bent on continuing the fight and provoking Israel into massacring more innocents to foment more pressure on Israel to withdraw. Hamas are terrorists, responsible for the atrocities of October 7 and decades of further violence against Israel before then. It futile to force them into submission militarily. This has to be stopped around a table, not over a battlefield.
With each body added to the mountains of corpses made in this conflict, Hamas and Israel both have shown little enthusiasm to agree to any terms. Both sides are locked into a cycle of retaliatory violence, the oceans of blood spilt already not enough to satisfy their thirsts. Even as nations calls for an immediate ceasefire and more of Israel’s allies voice their horror at the acts committed against the Palestinians, the appetite for peace from both sides is frighteningly small.
Egypt and Qatar, both of whom have previously acted as mediators between Israel and Hamas, have been actively involved in behind-the-scenes negotiations to de-escalate the conflict. However, the assassination of Haniyeh has made these efforts more difficult, as Hamas has vowed revenge, promising continued rocket attacks against Israel, while Israel has refused to back down from its campaign of murder and destruction.
Gaza is the catalyst for all tension in the Middle East, and if peace and reconstruction is not acheived there, there is no hope at all for peace, risking out-of-control violence on a scale not seen before in the region. A regional war would have catastrophic consequences, not just for Israel and Palestine, but for the entire Middle East, destabilizing economies, increasing refugee flows, and creating a breeding ground for extremist groups. Decades more of violence, chaos, and terror loom for a region which has not known lasting peace for at least a hundred years.
International efforts are shifting from supporting respective allies towards achieving a lasting peace, but it is not yet enough to stop the bloodshed for good. Without sustained pressure from the great powers of the world with unbiased, focused aim for a lasting ceasefire and a sustainable two-state solution, Gaza, Palestine, Israel, Iran, and the surrounding region will be left at the mercy of a war without clear end.
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