August 16, 2024
The assassination of Hamas leader Esmail Haniyeh was just one of seven killings of major Hamas and Hezbollah figures by Israel since early June. Israel has a long history of assassinations of Arabs trying to wipe out the state of Israel. But June and July saw the greatest concentration of such assassinations in Israel’s history of threequarters of a century.
Many of the dead have close ties to the Islamic Republic. Four of those killed were Hamas figures and the other three were Hezbollah leaders. They are: Esmail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas political arm, was killed July 31 in Tehran.
Mohammad ad-Deif, deputy head of the Hamas military wing in Gaza, was killed in an Israeli air raid on Gaza July 13. Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of the Hamas forces in Khan Yunis, one of the major cities in Gaza, was killed in the same Israeli air raid July 13. Fuad Shukr, often called the top aide to Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrollah, was killed July 30 in an air attack on Beirut.
He was reportedly the commander who ordered the launch of the missile that killed 12 Israeli Druze youths in Majdal Shams when the missile overshot an Israeli military base. He was wanted by the United States for an alleged role in the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut.
Mohammad Nasser, the commander who is believed to pick out the targets for Hezbollah to fire at in Israel from southwest Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli air raid on Tyre, Lebanon, July 3. Taleb Sami Abdullah, reportedly closely associated with the late Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleymani, was killed June 11 as a result of an Israeli air strike on Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.
Abdel Fattah az-Zarii, the Hamas economic minister for the Gaza Strip, was the most recent to be assassinated, bombed by the Israeli Air Force August 4. Israel said Zarii was responsible for distributing fuel and funds for Hamas activities.