The Assassination of Ismail Haniyeh: Implications for the Region

Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’s political bureau, was assassinated in Tehran, Iran on July 31, 2024, following his attendance of the inauguration of Iran’s new president. Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of the assassination but Israel has given no response, as is common practice when Israel is involved in an assassination. The assassination of Haniyeh followed the earlier killing of Fuad Shukr a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut by Israel, as retaliation for an attack that left 12 dead in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.   Israel has stated previously that it would target Hamas officials wherever they are following October 7, and were successful in December when they assassinated Haniyeh’s deputy in Beirut, which brought ceasefire talks to a halt.   The targeting of Haniyeh who was leading negotiation efforts for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas War is a serious escalation, and its occurrence in the heart of Iran directly following the inauguration of Iran’s president, not only has serious implications on the Israel-Hamas War, but for Iran and its proxies as well, who have been targeted recently by Israel.   So far, Iran has not provided information on how the assassination occurred, with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) stating that the attack is under investigation, it is likely that a precision guided missile was used to target the IRGC veteran’s mansion that he was staying in. Following the assassination, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has pledged that Israel will face "harsh punishment" for its action in Tehran.   This is not the first time that Israel has been able to penetrate Iran’s borders to conduct assassinations, Israel has routinely been able to target Iranian officials such as its yearslong assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear experts and others involved in the Iran’s nuclear program. Most recent was the 2020 assassination of, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a leading Iranian military nuclear scientist, was killed by a remote-controlled machine pistol while driving outside Tehran.   Given Iran's direct and massive missile barrage against Israel in April, following the bombing of its embassy in Damascus, the world now faces significant questions: How will Tehran respond to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh on its soil? Moreover, does Iran have the capability or incentive to contain the actions of Hezbollah and the Houthis, especially after Israel’s killing of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr in Beirut and its bombing of the Houthi’s Hodeidah Port?

The assassination attempt on Former President Donald Trump is the closest a president or presidential candidate has come to being assassinated since the shooting of President Ronald Regan by John Hinckley Jr. in 1981. President Jospeh Biden was quick to condemn the attempt saying “There is no place in America for this kind of violence — for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”   Despite his call for unity and a cooling of tempers, Biden's assertion that this particular violence has no place in the U.S. overlooks a significant historical context. Political violence has been central to the formation of the U.S., with guns being one of the many instruments used to shape the nation and its trajectory.   Every U.S. president that has been assassinated or targeted was through the use of a gun. Presidents Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy were all shot and killed. This violence was not restricted to presidents alone; civil rights leaders such as Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Fred Hampton were all shot and killed in less than a decade.   The attempt on Trump’s life is a stark reminder of the polarization and political violence that has always been at the heart of the U.S., and which has increased in recent years, largely due to the politics of Trump himself. He now finds himself a victim of the very forces that he has been inflaming, and this attempt on his life will have significant implications for the upcoming presidential election and beyond.