By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) – The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Iran strips Palestinian Islamist group Hamas of one of its sharpest political minds but will have no bearing on the leadership of the military wing that Israel is trying to destroy in Gaza.
Hamas has several possible candidates to replace Haniyeh, notably Khaled Meshaal, the group’s former leader who survived an Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan in 1997 and resides today in Qatar.
Whoever emerges, experts say it won’t impact the way Hamas runs its war against Israel in the Gaza Strip, where leaders including Yahya Sinwar have been directing operations with a significant degree of autonomy during the conflict.
For Hamas leaders based outside the Palestinian territories, the assassination in Tehran indicates heightened risks. Haniyeh was the second Hamas leader killed in a Middle East capital this year, following a drone strike that took out the group’s deputy leader – Saleh al-Arouri – in Beirut in January.
Israel has achieved mixed results in trying to kill the Gaza-based commanders responsible for planning and executing the cross-border Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas-led gunmen killed 1,200 people and abducted another 250, according to Israeli tallies.
In March, Israel said it had killed Marwan Issa, the deputy military commander of the Hamas armed wing known as Al Qassam Brigades. The United States confirmed Issa’s death in an Israeli operation. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied his death.
In July, an Israeli attempt in Gaza to kill Mohammed Deif – head of the Qassam Brigades and believed to be one of the masterminds of Oct. 7 – resulted in scores of Palestinian dead but no confirmation he was among them.
Israel has said there are increasing signs that Deif was killed in the strike but has yet to confirm whether he is dead. It has accused Hamas of hiding the truth about his fate.
Qatar-based senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya has denied that Deif was killed.
The other mastermind of the Oct. 7 attack, Sinwar, is still believed to be directing military operations, possibly from bunkers beneath Gaza, while playing a leading role in indirect negotiations with Israel for a prisoner swap deal.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Sinwar and the other Hamas leaders were “living on borrowed time” after Oct. 7, which prompted Israel to launch the ongoing offensive that has laid waste to much of Gaza and killed almost 40,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.
“Assassinations don’t impact Hamas,” a source close to the Islamist militant group told Reuters from Gaza, declining to be identified due to the sensitivity of the subject.
“Fighters on the ground have their own orders, they are bound to fight until Sinwar and the leadership tell them there is a deal in place,” the source said.
Asked to confirm that Israel was behind the assassination of Haniyeh, an Israeli government spokesperson said: “We are not commenting on that particular incident.”
‘A FAKE VICTORY’
Haniyeh was appointed to the top leadership role in 2017.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official located outside the Palestinian territories, said Israel assassinated Haniyeh because they had failed to defeat the Iran-backed group in Gaza, calling it an attempt to portray “a fake victory”.
He noted Hamas had weathered numerous assassinations over the years, including Sheikh Ahmed Yassin – Hamas’ co-founder and spiritual leader – who was killed in a helicopter missile strike in 2004 as he left a mosque in Gaza City.
“Hamas is a movement of institutions, it doesn’t die when its leaders die,” Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Hamas was founded in 1987 as the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist movement that has drawn followers across the Arab world since being established in Egypt in 1928.
Ashraf Abouelhoul, a specialist on Palestinian issues and managing editor of the Egyptian state-owned paper Al-Ahram, said Hamas had other veteran politicians such as Meshaal to fall back on. “He is set to have a big role,” he said.
But on the military front, nothing would change.
“Haniyeh had no role when it comes to the military aspect. (That) is up to the military leaders in Gaza,” he said.
(Writing by Tom Perry; editing by Mark Heinrich)
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