Senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders assassinated via BICom

Senior Hezbollah and Hamas leaders assassinated

What’s happened: The IDF has confirmed it conducted a strike on Hezbollah number two Fuad Shukr last night, while Hamas have confirmed that its overseas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in the early hours of this morning.

In Beirut: First, in southern Beirut at around 7.40pm yesterday, high-ranking Hezbollah official Shukr was killed in an air strike in the city’s Dahiya Quarter.

• IDF Spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said: “This evening, the IDF carried out a pinpoint attack in Beirut and killed Fuad Shukr, also known as Said Mohsin, the most senior commander in the Hezbollah terrorist organisation and the head of its strategic array. Mohsin also served as the right-hand man and adviser on the planning and prosecution of the war to Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.”
• It is thought that the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate successfully located Shukr in an eight-story apartment building, advising the Israeli Air Force of his whereabouts and of the opportunity for a strike. Lebanese media reported three killed in the attack, including two children, and at least 74 injured.

In Tehran: Later, at 2.00am local time, the head of Hamas’s Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in the Iranian capital, seemingly by a precision-guided missile fired directly through the window of the apartment in the military veterans building in which he was staying while attending the newly-elected Iranian president’s swearing-in ceremony.

• Unlike the strike on Shukr, Israel is yet to comment on the assassination of Haniyeh. Hamas, confirming Haniyeh’s death, said he had been killed “in a treacherous Zionist strike...” The office of the Palestinian President Abbas, whose Fatah faction is a rival to Hamas, said he “strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious escalation.” 
• The New York Times reports this morning, citing two senior Iranian officials, that Iran was holding an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council in response to Haniyeh’s assassination.
• Iranian sources are also briefing that the missile which killed Haniyeh was fired from outside of Iran.

Context: Both assassinations are indicative of Israel’s ability to locate and strike Hamas and Hezbollah leaders. They testify to the sophistication of Israel's intelligence and its ability to conduct precision strikes. 

• Shukr was targeted for being ultimately responsible for Saturday’s Hezbollah rocket strike on Majdal Shams in the Golan Heights, which killed 12 children and injured 40 others. A Hezbollah veteran of over 40 years, Shukr was also thought to have played a key role in the 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut which killed 241 US military personnel and wounded 128 others.
• In recent years, as head of Hezbollah's Strategic Unit, Shukr had assumed responsibility for Hezbollah’s weapons programme, including the procurement of precise-guided missiles, cruise missiles, anti-ship missiles, long-range rockets, and UAVs.
• Yediot Ahronot’s Ronen Bergman, quotes a high-ranking Israel official saying of Shukr, “He is Nasrallah’s secret-bearer and the person responsible for the organization’s military buildup. After Mustafa Badreddine’s death, he took some of his powers and his standing became stronger. He was considered to have very close relations with Quds Force officials in the Revolutionary Guard, and… will be perceived by the Iranians as a major loss. He is considered to be intelligent and judicious, a man in the shadows who operated professionally and over a very long period of time.”
• Israeli media also quotes Muhammad Ali Al-Husseini, secretary-general of the Islamic Arab Council in Lebanon, saying that Fuad Shukr had been the most important operational figure in Hezbollah. He said that in terms of hierarchy, Fuad Shukr had been number one, even before Nasrallah, on the security and operational level.
• During the over nine months of escalated conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, strikes on the Lebanese capital have been rare. The strike on the Shukr was the first since a January strike killed Hamas’s deputy leader abroad Saleh al-Arouri.
• Earlier this week, the Israeli Security Cabinet empowered Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant to decide on Israel’s response to the Majdal Shams attack, enabling quick decision-making and maintaining the element of surprise.
• Israel is thought to have advised Washington of the strike in advance. US State Department deputy spokesman Vedant Patel later said that “we’re continuing to work toward a diplomatic resolution that would allow Israeli and Lebanese civilians to return to their homes and live in peace and security. We certainly want to avoid any kind of escalation.”
• Patel reiterated that US support for Israel remained “ironclad”, that “Israel has every right to defend itself”, and “certainly faces threats like no other country does in that region of the world.”
• For fuller context and background on Hezbollah, the scale of the threat it poses, its ideology, history, and place within the Iranian axis, see BICOM’s recent briefing paper.
• For Israel – in particular the Mossad – to have the local intelligence in Tehran to have been able to locate the exact room in which Haniyeh was staying represents a spectacular success. It speaks to the sophistication of Mossad’s penetration of Iran, while the precision required to target him through his apartment window speaks to the sophistication and precision Israel is able to call upon for such targeted assassinations.
• It is also important that Israel chose to act in a relatively narrow moment of opportunity while Haniyeh was away from his Qatari base. It is to be assumed that Israel would also have possessed the intelligence and operational capacity to strike Haniyeh in Qatar. However, such an assassination would have been likely ruled out due to its likely impact on Israel-US relations, and to Qatar’s dual status as a backer and host of Hamas, on the one hand, and a mediator on the question of the hostages, on the other.
• Haniyeh is the most senior Hamas official killed since the star of the war in Gaza. He had been based in Qatar since replacing Khaled Mashal (himself the previous subject of an unsuccessful Israeli assassination attempt) in 2017. There, Haniyeh had been the most senior of Hamas’s overseas leadership – distinct from the local Gazan leadership headed by October 7th mastermind Yahya Sinwar. Three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza in April.
• Considered a relative pragmatist within Hamas, Haniyeh was a key figure in coordinating the Sunni Hamas’s relations with the Iranian Shiite axis.
• The assassinations serve as a further warning to the rest of the Hezbollah and Hamas leaderships that they may well be future targets. Over the last nine months, Israel has conducted several targeted assassinations, including Hamas’s Gazan number two Mohamed Deif, al-Arouri, and senior IRGC officer Mohammad Reza Zahedi.

Looking ahead: While Israel will brace for a possible response from Hezbollah, the IDF confirmed that “there are no changes in the Home Front Command defensive guidelines. The IDF is currently conducting a situational assessment. If any changes will be made, an update will be released on the IDF and Home Front Command's platforms.”