Prof. Ma Xiaolin
Zhejiang International Studies University, China
Director of the Institute for Mediterranean Studies
On 1 August, a solemn funeral was held for Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas, who was killed in an attack in the Iranian capital, Tehran. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is reported to have ordered direct retaliation against Israel. That night, more than 60 revenge rockets were fired by Lebanese Hezbollah into northern Israel. Despite Israel’s deliberate efforts to inflame the Middle East crisis, Haniyeh’s death was not enough to bring the situation out of control.
On the night of 31 July, Haniyeh, who was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new president, Mohammad Pezeshkian, was killed in a surprise attack on his residence. The Iranian government claimed that Israel was behind the assassination. The Israeli government’s press office published a portrait of Haniyeh with the words ‘wiped out’, and Prime Minister Netanyahu euphemistically declared that he had ‘dealt a devastating blow to Iranian proxies’. The Jerusalem Post quoted Israeli intelligence sources as saying that Haniyeh had been killed by a remote-controlled bomb prepared by Israelis and that Tehran had been chosen as the site of the attack to humiliate Iran.
Haniyeh’s death showed that Israel has once again flagrantly violated Iran’s sovereignty, territory and airspace, grossly violated the norms of international law and deliberately provoked a violent conflict between countries, and violated humanitarian law by physically eliminating the leader of the enemy group without due process. The Chinese Foreign Ministry strongly condemned it, as did Iran, Russia, Turkey and others. The United States claimed it had nothing to do with the incident and, together with the UK and France, blocked the adoption of a Security Council resolution condemning Israel.
Haniyeh’s assassination comes as no surprise, as Haniyeh has long been someone Israel has put a price on, hounded and officially described as a ‘walking dead’. Since 2004, Israel has killed two generations of Hamas leaders in Gaza, Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz Lantis, and other Hamas military and political leaders are on the death list.
Intelligence officials say Haniyeh’s death was “specifically orchestrated in tightly secured Tehran to make it more visible and embarrassing for Iran”.
Since the start of this round of hostilities, Israel has vowed to “root out” Hamas, “cut off its branches” and even made it clear that Qatar is the only place where senior Hamas officials are “exempt from death”. In April this year, the Israeli army blew up Haniyeh’s three sons and four grandchildren, including three girls. Haniyeh was not impressed by the news. Sources say that more than 60 members of his family have died at the hands of Israel, just a fraction of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed.
Haniyeh, one of the founders of Hamas and its first Prime Minister after being elected to an autonomous legislature in 2006, is known for his relative moderation and determination and has been the leading Palestinian negotiator pushing for a ceasefire since the outbreak of the current conflict. Israel’s physical elimination of the key negotiator in the face of repeated setbacks in the talks is a clear rejection of peace talks and to keep on continuation of the state of war.
A week before Haniyeh’s death, 14 Palestinian factions had signed the landmark Beijing Declaration, in which Hamas and other radical groups announced their acceptance of the two-state solution and their recognition of the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This was a powerful sign that, after 18 years of accepting the Oslo Accords and contesting the leadership of the autonomous institutions through elections, Hamas had once again demonstrated its willingness to reconcile and accept Israel’s legitimate existence. Israel’s current insistence on eliminating Haniyeh is an attempt to block the path to intra-Palestinian reconciliation and to further divide and weaken the Palestinian camp in order to exploit it in the long term, maintain the status quo and reject the two-state solution.
After Haniyeh’s assassination, Hamas announced a freeze on ceasefire and hostage exchange talks, reiterated that it would “never recognise Israel” and would fight to the end, which is exactly what the Israeli government expected, justifying its insistence on “cleansing, disarming and de-extremising Hamas” in Gaza.
After these twists and turns, it is expected that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will be the main battleground in Gaza, that the war will remain low-intensity and protracted, that Hamas and other armed groups will continue to use guerrilla warfare to attack Israel, that its regional allies will continue to hunt Israel, and that Israel’s state of war will continue and the opposition’s “showdown” with Netanyahu will be postponed indefinitely.
Israel’s pursuit of Haniyeh in Tehran, following its air strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria in April this year, is another blatant violation of Iranian airspace, territory and sovereignty, openly provoking, threatening and even humiliating the Iranian leadership. The Israeli cross-border bombing of the consulate triggered symbolic and punitive Iranian long-range air strikes, but the two sides settled the score and applied the brakes in time to prevent the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from spreading to the entire Eastern Mediterranean region and then to the Persian Gulf, “the world’s oil depot”.
Israel’s attack was a step too far, which made Iran want to stop and made the international community worry about whether Israel and Iran would again come into direct confrontation. In addition, the day before, Israel bombed and killed Fouad Shukr, one of the most senior members of Lebanese Hezbollah. Hezbollah has vowed to avenge Shukr and Haniyeh, and the Houthis have made similar statements. Israel is creating a major incident by stirring up several hornets’ nests at once.
However, Hamas does not have the power to fight fire with fire against Israel, Iran will not impulsively enter into a full-scale war with Israel, and Hezbollah will refrain from triggering a third Lebanon war. Nor does Israel have the will or the ability to launch a large-scale “northern campaign” and get into an even bigger quagmire. The US has reaffirmed its commitment to protect Israel as it enters a critical phase of the elections, but has also urged Israel not to “add fuel to the fire”. In short, Haniyeh’s death will not significantly alter the regional situation.
Haniyeh is a key figure in Hamas and the last name on Israel’s “hit list”. But in the grand scheme of the Middle East conflict, Haniyeh is a minor figure who died an unnatural death, and many leaders have died before him: King Abdullah of Jordan (1951), President Sadat of Egypt (1981), President Gemayel of Lebanon (1982) and Prime Minister Karami (1987), PLO number two Abu Ghad (1988), President Mouawad of Lebanon (1989), Prime Minister Rabin of Israel (1994), Prime Minister Hariri of Lebanon (2005)…
Haniyeh will be neither the first nor the last leader to die in the region.
The question is: how long can Israel, which is not a great power, survive against the “Axis of Resistance” made up of Iran and four regional armies?
* Prof. Ma, who knows the Middle East well, has worked for many years as a senior Xinhua correspondent in Kuwait, Palestine and Iraq. His academic studies focus on the Middle East, Arab geography and China-Middle East relations.
