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How Hamas and Iran will respond to the assassinations of top Hamas leaders

BY KHUSHBU SHAH

POLITICO: Hamas will not be deterred or diminished after the killing of one of its most senior leaders, two experts on Middle East politics told POLITICO.

Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas and who was leading cease-fire negotiations on the part of the militant group, was assassinated in Tehran Wednesday morning just hours after Israel targeted a top Hezbollah military leader in Beirut.

Both Iran and Hamas have pointed the finger at Israel, which has conducted many high-profile assassinations over the years on Iranian soil and targeted Hamas’ leaders in Gaza. Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s assassination.

Iran has vowed a “harsh and painful response” in retaliation, leading some to worry a broader regional war could be possible, adding that the United States and other Western countries won’t be immune to the fallout.

On Thursday, Israel confirmed it killed the head of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif, in a mid-July airstrike.

Tahani Mustafa, senior Palestine analyst at the International Crisis Group, and Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins University, explain what could come next after the killing of the key Palestinian leader who joined Hamas in the 1980s before rising through its ranks.

Both experts spoke to POLITICO before the news of Deif’s killing was made public by Israel.

Their comments have been edited for clarity.

Who is Ismail Haniyeh?

Haniyeh, one of Hamas’ senior leaders, was in Iran for the inauguration of its new president. The political leader of the militant group, he had been living in exile in Qatar. On the global stage, he was the face of Hamas, tasked with leading cease-fire negotiations in recent months. He was once the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority for a brief period.

He joined Hamas in the 1980s during the first intifada and took over the top position in 2017. In May, the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office requested arrest warrants for Haniyeh alongside two other Hamas leaders and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes related to Oct. 7, when Hamas killed more than 1,200 people on Israeli soil and took around 250 hostages. In the months since, through airstrikes and a ground offensive, Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and spread a humanitarian crisis through Gaza, experts and aid groups say.

Regional leaders and Arab diplomats typically view Haniyeh as a moderate within the group.

How did Haniyeh operate within Hamas?

Tahani Mustafa: He was a moderate within the movement. He was a centrist. He was someone who was able to unify a lot of the different strands within the movement itself, maintaining some level of cohesion, which I think has been unprecedented in a lot of other Palestinian factions so far, especially in light of Oct. 7.

Where does this leave Hamas?

Tahani Mustafa: Often, Western commentators and Israel themselves tend to sort of misconstrue factions like Hamas, where the movement is not dependent on particular individuals. This isn’t something that is going to have the effect of derailing the movement by any means. It’s not going to be a massive blow to the movement in terms of its military or political positional capabilities. I think, if anything, this is going to probably push the movement into a more hardline corner.

What does this mean for cease-fire negotiations

This is not the first time Israel has targeted a moderate and someone it was negotiating with, Mustafa said.

Tahani Mustafa: The last one, I think, was Ahmad Jabari [Hamas’ then-military commander] in 2012 where they assassinated him on the cusp of what was a comprehensive agreement for a permanent cessation of hostilities, and they had assassinated him while he had the negotiating papers in his car.

[Editor’s note: At the time, Israel posted on X, then known as Twitter, Jabari had been “eliminated.” Then-Israeli President Shimon Peres said to U.S. President Barack Obama: “The head of the military force of Hamas was killed half an hour ago. He was a most extreme man and was in charge of all the attacks and assassinations from Gaza against Israel. We shall handle it with great care.”]

Tahani Mustafa: If anything, if we are to see any kind of serious negotiations coming to the fore, Israel is going to have to make some serious concessions. It would be political suicide at this point for any entity that has experienced the blow that Hamas has today to simply just cede over the demands of one side.

Even Israeli press reported a month ago that Netanyahu had effectively derailed nine cease-fire proposals through various mechanisms, including leaking sensitive information to his war Cabinet. This just kind of goes in the long line of Israel attempting to derail cease-fire talks. But if you want to put it on the other hand, this could be the thing that can get Netanyahu the cease-fire, also saving face in front of his own public.

It kind of really miscalculates the position of your adversary, which is that, if anything, now, Israel is going to be in a harder position in negotiations, because Hamas is not going to be able to accept anything short of the concessions that it is now asking for >>>