The killing of a top Hamas leader in its backyard is 'humiliating' for Iran, experts say

• Ismail Haniyeh, one of the top members of Hamas, was killed on Wednesday.
• Iranian officials accused Israel of conducting the attack. Israel has not commented.
• Middle East experts told BI the strike is a "humiliating" blow to Iran's security and image.

Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, was killed on Wednesday.

Details are still emerging about exactly how he died. But one thing is clear — he was supposed to be safe.

Haniyeh was visiting an ally, Iran. He was in the capital for the swearing-in of its new president, a high-profile public occasion.

In the hours before he died he had audiences with the president and Iran's supreme leader.

That proximity to power did not keep him alive — to the outrage of his Iranian hosts.

'Humiliating' blow

Tasnim News, an outlet with links to the authorities in Iran, said a guided projectile struck his dwelling in northern Tehran at around 2 a.m.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas and Iran blamed Israel. Israel didn't comment, but has carried out similar attacks before.

According to Middle East and military experts, Haniyeh's death is a "humiliating" blow to Iran.

Andrew Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society, said the killing "sends a very clear message to Iran about Israel's ability to strike inside their borders."

Fox said Haniyeh was of limited tactical significance as a target and could be easily replaced — but his loss still took a symbolic toll.

A history of attacks

It wouldn't be the first time Israel has conducted military operations deep inside Iran.

Israeli operatives gunned down Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, a high-ranking Egyptian member of Al-Qaeda, on the streets of Tehran in August 2020, four officials told The New York Times at the time.

In November 2020, a Mossad team killed Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, an Iranian nuclear physicist said to be the leader of Iran's nuclear program.

Ameneh Mehvar, a Middle East Regional Specialist with the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), said the latest attack reflected poorly on Iran.

She called the killing "humiliating" and "damaging" to its image in the region.

It "shows how deep Israel has likely infiltrated Iranian intelligence circles," she said.

Farzan Sabet, a senior research associate at the Global Governance Centre and the Sanctions and Sustainable Peace Hub at the Geneva Graduate Institute, went further.

He told BI that an "embarrassing security failure" like this would damage Iran's credibility among its allies and perhaps push it into a counterattack to save face.

"Tehran will likely feel pressure to retaliate in some form despite wanting to remain untouched by the Israel-Hamas war," he said.

A new phase of brinkmanship

Tensions between Israel and Iran were high even before Haniyeh's killing.

Iran and Israel have for decades fought a shadow war of espionage and assassination.

Since Hamas launched terror attacks on Israel on October 7, groups allied with Iran — the Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah — have targeted Israel, with attacks sometimes spilling over into neighboring countries and directly involving Iran.

An exchange of attacks in April on an Iranian embassy in Syria and then a return attack on Israeli soil marked an earlier escalation that stopped short of further conflict.

According to Burcu Ozcelik, a senior research fellow for Middle East Security at the Royal United Services Institute, the attack on Haniyeh represents a "new phase of brinkmanship" in the region.

"While it is not the first targeted assassination against a high-level figure within the so-called 'Axis of Resistance' at this juncture of intense tit-for-tat and a high-stakes geopolitical conflict, it will have ripple effects across the region," she told BI.

Haniyeh's assassination and the recent killing of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut will "galvanize" other Iran-backed armed proxy groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, she said.

This, she said, "creates a dangerous conflagration of threats to Israel and Western interests in the region, notably in the Red Sea, where the Houthis will likely escalate their attacks."

Mehvar from ACLED, meanwhile, predicted an Iranian counterattack that was "harsher" but "proportionate," likely carried out with allies.

Fox, of the Henry Jackson Society, foresaw "some kind of minor" escalation in rocket attacks from Iranian proxies in Yemen, Iraq, and Lebanon, followed by a return to the earlier precarious status quo.

"They will not want to escalate to the point where the West steps in, as they did during the rocket attacks in April, which were also an embarrassing failure," he said.