As Palestinians mourn Ismail Haniyeh, here's a history of Israeli assassinations of Hamas leaders

Overwhelming anger spread throughout Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank—experiencing a genocidal Israeli war for the tenth month—after word got out of the assassination of the head of Hamas political bureau and the head of the negotiating team on the ceasefire deal, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.

Speaking to The New Arab, several Gazans accused the United States of directly being complicit with Israel in the assassination of Haniyeh and the majority of Palestinian leaders, whether in Gaza or abroad.

Others spoke of how Israel is killing the last chance to end the war on Gaza and continuing the genocide against the people of Gaza in light of the global, Arab and Islamic silence.

"I was shocked by the news of Haniyeh's assassination, especially since he is abroad in Iran [...] I used to think that Palestinian leaders, especially those outside Gaza, had international immunity, but it seems that the entire world colluded with Israel to end the Palestinian cause," Mahmoud al-Assar, a resident of the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, told TNA.

While al-Assar says he opposes politically Hamas' approach, that does not mean that he accepts Israel killing symbols of the Palestinian resistance so easily. 

"No matter what Israel does, it will not end the Palestinian existence or the Palestinian cause, and it will not prevent future generations from resisting it," Iyad Saidam, a Palestinian man from al-Nuseirat refugee camp, remarked to TNA.  

Saidam believed that the assassination of Haniyeh should push for Palestinian unity everywhere, not only in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank, but in the entire world, and that the Palestinians should work to form a unified Palestinian body whose top priority is resisting the Israeli occupation.

"The Israeli assassination was not a coincidence but came as a step in which Israel evades the obligation of a ceasefire, especially in light of the increasing international pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to complete the negotiations," Hussam al-Dajani, a political analyst from Gaza, told TNA,

"Netanyahu is fully aware that a ceasefire means the end of his political life, and he does not want that," he added. "[Haniyeh] was assassinated like his predecessors, and it is possible that his successors might also face a similar fate. Yet it remains clear that decades of these assassinations were unable to thwart Palestinian resistance, and their capabilities continue to develop and tip the balance of power in the region."

While the people of Gaza mourn Haniyeh, his assassination is part and parcel of a series of assassinations carried out by the Israeli army against Hamas leaders, including politicians and militants, since the Palestinian movement was founded in 1987. 

During the current bloody war against the Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave, the Israeli army has assassinated several leaders of Hamas, including Osama al-Muzaini, Ayman Nofal, Marwan Issa, Rawhi Mushtaha, and dozens of second and third rank personnel in the Islamist movement.

The following is a list of the main Hamas leaders assassinated by Israel over the years:

Emad Akel

Emad Akel was born on June 19, 1971, in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. Akel turned to carrying out military operations against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank, where Palestinians were able to move between Gaza and the West Bank at the time.

On November 24, 1993, an Israeli military force surrounded a house in the Shujaiyya neighbourhood in Gaza City where he was hiding, killing him and one of his assistants when they tried to escape.

Yahya Ayyash

Leader Yahya Ayyash is considered one of the most prominent and important military leaders in the al-Qassam Brigades who was assassinated by Israel, which accused him of being responsible for the deaths of dozens of Israelis by carrying out a series of bombings and suicide operations inside Israel.

In early 1996, the Israeli security service, Shin Bet, managed to deliver a booby-trapped phone to Ayyash, and while he was talking to his father in the West Bank, the phone was remotely detonated, as he was identified by his voice.

Khaled Meshaal 

On 25 September 1997, Mossad agents acting under orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet attempted to assassinate him.

The agents entered Jordan on fake Canadian passports and disguised as tourists. Two of them waited at the entrance of the Hamas offices in Jordan's capital Amman, and, as Meshaal walked into his office, one of them came up from behind and held a device to Meshaal's left ear that transmitted a fast-acting poison.

Initially, he thought the agents had failed to hurt him, but later in the day he developed a severe headache and began vomiting. He was rushed to a Jordanian hospital, where his condition rapidly deteriorated.

Immediately after the incident, Jordan's King Hussein demanded that Netanyahu turn over the antidote for the poison, threatening to sever diplomatic relations and to try the detained Mossad agents.

Salah Shehadeh

Salah Shehadeh was considered the founder of the military wing of Hamas, as he established a military apparatus called the "Palestinian Mujahideen" three years before the announcement of the establishment of Hamas in late 1987. 

Salah Shehadeh remained at the head of the organization until it was transformed into the al-Qassam Brigades in 1991.

On July 22, 2002, the Israeli army killed him with 18 other people after attacked his house in al-Daraj neighbourhood in Gaza City. 

Ismail Abu Shanab

Ismail Abu Shanab was considered one of the most prominent founders and leaders of Hamas, and spent more than ten years in Israeli prisons on charges of leading the Hamas organization during the first intifada.

Israel assassinated Ismail Abu Shanab on August 21, 2003, by firing five missiles from a military helicopter at his car. 

Ahmed Yassin

Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was the founder of the Hamas movement and arguably the most influential figure in its history. Yassin was born in 1936 and, aged 10, his entire village just outside of Ashkelon was ethnically cleansed by the Israeli army during the Nakba.

His family fled to Gaza as refugees.

A quadriplegic, Yassin was assassinated by Hellfire missiles fired by an Israeli Apache Helicopter as he was being wheeled out of morning prayers in Gaza City in March 2004, aged 67.

Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi

He was a Palestinian doctor and politician, one of the founders of Hamas, and one of its most prominent political leaders.

He assumed leadership of the movement following the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004, but less than a month after assuming this position, Israel assassinated him by firing a missile at his car in Gaza City.

Adnan al-Ghoul

Adnan al-Ghoul was considered one of the first generation of leaders and founders of al-Qassam Brigades and an assistant to Yahya Ayyash. Al-Ghoul, studied engineering abroad, manufactured bombs, rockets, and missiles locally, which gave Hamas new capabilities that it did not have before.

On 21 October 2004, Israeli warplanes attacked and killed him with his assistant Emad Abbas while he was driving his vehicle in the city of Gaza.  

Saeed Siam 

After Hamas won the elections in Gaza in 2006, Saeed Siam took over the Ministry of Interior and formed the executive force supporting the security services in the Gaza Strip. 

The Israeli army killed Siam with an airstrike on his home in Gaza City during the 2008-2009 Israeli war. 

Nizar Rayyan

During the same Israeli war in 2009, the Israeli army killed Nizar Rayyan, a prominent political and military leader in Hamas. 

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh

Mabhouh was the Chief Logistics Officer for Hamas and was widely seen as the man responsible for procuring much of the group's weaponry and equipment.

In 2010, Mabhouh was assassinated in his hotel room in Dubai after being meticulously tracked by 11 Mossad agents using foreign passports.

His death initially baffled police, as his door was locked from the inside. Later on, it was discovered that he had been given a strong muscle relaxant by the assassins, electrocuted and then suffocated by a pillow.

The assassination caused a major diplomatic incident due to the use of UK and European passports by the Israeli Mossad agents, which led to several European countries launching investigations into Mossad activities and even to the arrest of one of the suspects in Poland at the behest of Germany.

Ahmed al-Jaabari

On November 14, 2012, Israel succeeded in reaching him and targeted him with an airstrike while he was in a car near the Public Service Complex in Gaza City, a week after his return from Hajj. 

He was accused by Israel of being part of the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2005. 

Raed al-Attar

He held a leadership position in the military council of al-Qassam Brigades and was the architect of the kidnapping of the soldier Gilad Shalit.

He was assassinated in an airstrike on a house in Rafah, Gaza Strip, in 2014.

Saleh al-Arouri 

Saleh al-Arouri was one of the most senior figures in the Hamas hierarchy and crucial on both the political and military fronts. The 57-year-old was the deputy head of Hamas's political bureau, and helped establish the group's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades. 

On 2 January 2024, al-Arouri was killed in an Israeli strike on an office in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon.