[FREE READ] Could Iranians Have Been Involved in Haniyeh’s Killing?

It’s not surprising that Israel would have caught up with Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top political leader, who was assassinated in an airstrike in Tehran on Wednesday. It had tried to kill him [before](https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20240731-who-was-hamas-leader-ismail-haniyeh-the-ex-palestinian-pm-killed-in-tehran-strike), and following the shocking atrocities of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, the Israelis made clear that the group’s leadership were “[dead men walking](https://news.sky.com/story/hamas-leaders-dead-men-walking-as-israel-claims-troops-are-fighting-in-heart-of-city-13003298).”

Since then, the gloves have come off in Israel’s shadow war with Iran, which it calls the “[head of the snake](https://www.thenationalnews.com/news/us/2024/07/22/iran-head-of-the-snake-israel-tells-un-after-tel-aviv-drone-hit/)” of a network of terrorist proxies that include Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, the Houthis in Yemen, and smaller militias operating in Iraq and Syria. As the devastating war in Gaza rages on with no end in sight, Israel has set about picking off senior commanders of [Hamas](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67866346), [Hezbollah](https://apnews.com/article/israel-lebanon-strike-beirut-52c2a1711e274859b60daf8d2db3e0e2) and Iran’s [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68708923) one by one.—*Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a research fellow at Macquarie University’s Department of Security Studies and Criminology*

[Continue reading the analysis here](https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/31/haniyeh-killing-iran-inside-job-israel/?utm_content=gifting&tpcc=gifting_article&gifting_article=aGFuaXllaC1raWxsaW5nLWlyYW4taW5zaWRlLWpvYi1pc3JhZWw=&pid=PNIXdK9mRs1llbx).