Two Assassinations, Same Problem: Israel Didn’t Think About the Consequences
Ismail Haniyeh’s sons killed in the strike.
Two airstrikes within nine days, one attributed to Israel in Damascus, and the other in Gaza, epitomize the seriousness of the strategic entanglement Israel finds itself in now, in the seventh month of the war against Hamas.
The war in the Gaza Strip, which already in October slid into a limited confrontation with Hezbollah in Lebanon, is now threatening for the first time to also become a direct clash between Israel and Iran.
On April 1, the Iranian Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi (also known as Hassan Mahadawi) was assassinated in the building adjacent to the Iranian Embassy in the Syrian capital. Mahdawi was killed along with six members of his staff.
On Wednesday, April 10, the Israel Air Force attacked a car in Gaza that was carrying three sons and three grandchildren of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, who lives in Qatar. All six passengers were killed.
The first operation looks like a planned move. Officially, Israel does not take responsibility for assassinations of high-ranking Iranian figures, but in this case it’s difficult to discern anyone else in the region with an interest in eliminating Zahedi. It can be surmised that the general, who was the commander of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon, was under longtime surveillance, at the end of which a decision was made to exploit the operational opportunity that arose.
An action of this sort is not improvised. It’s likely that given Zahedi’s senior standing, the whole chain of authorizations was necessary to decide on an attack. In contrast, it’s doubtful whether the security cabinet held a meeting to consider the likely implications of the operation.
The case of the Haniyeh brothers is different in essence. Sources in the Israel Defense Forces maintained on Wednesday that the three brothers were known Hamas militants who were distributing funds to members of the organization in Gaza at the time they were hit. It was a joint operation of the IDF and the Shin Bet security service.
The authorization for the attack, the army was compelled to admit, was given by a colonel in the fire center of Southern Command – only an intermediate level official. The head of Southern Command, the IDF chief of staff, the director of the Shin Bet, the defense minister, the prime minister – none of them knew about the operation in advance, and the chain of command below them didn’t bother to point out beforehand the possible consequences of killing six close family members of such a high-ranking Hamas figure.