Over the past two weeks, Israel’s military has killed the leader of Hamas’ military wing and his replacement - the latest in a string of such killings that have weakened the militant group without having much impact on the ongoing conflict.
Mohammed Odeh and Izz al-Din al-Haddad were among the architects of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, nearly all of whom have been killed in more than two years of war that has devastated Gaza.
A fragile ceasefire took effect in October, but Hamas still controls nearly half the territory and has brushed off demands to disarm. Israel is still regularly striking what it says are militant targets, often killing civilians, and seizing more territory.
Experts, citing Israel’s long history of taking out top militants, say targeted killings are unlikely to change that.
“The killing of military chiefs such as Odeh and Haddad points to Israel’s operational ability to reach Hamas’ military leadership,” said Nasser Khdour of the nonprofit ACLED, which tracks political violence and conflict worldwide.
But “the killing of senior commanders is unlikely, on its own, to push Hamas toward disarmament or make it accept the complete removal of its role in Gaza’s security and governance.”
An age-old tactic
Israel has carried out dozens of targeted killings throughout its history, but Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups have often endured and grown even more powerful after the loss of top leaders.
Take Hezbollah, for example. An Israeli airstrike killed its then-leader Abbas Musawi in southern Lebanon in 1992. Under Hassan Nasrallah, his charismatic replacement, Hezbollah grew into the region’s most powerful armed group and fought Israel to a bloody stalemate in 2006.
Nasrallah and nearly all of his deputies were killed in the 2024 war between Israel and Hezbollah. The Iran-backed group suffered other major losses that year, but resumed missile and drone attacks on Israel days after the start of the current war.
Hamas has lost one leader after another. Israel killed its founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in a 2004 airstrike. Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, the two masterminds of the Oct. 7 attack, were killed in 2024. The full-scale war went on for another year.
Both groups have pressed on, fueled by the decades-old grievances stemming from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The United States has also resorted to targeted killings against al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, taking out Osama bin Laden in a 2011 raid in Pakistan and IS founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019. Both groups have been vastly diminished, but only after yearslong wars involving ground forces.
The question is who comes after
Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of Israel’s military intelligence research division, said in March that targeted killings can be an effective tool but are not a “cure for all problems.”
“These operations by themselves don’t dramatically change the ability of those organizations to cause damage and to carry out attacks,” he said. “But it’s important for Israel to weaken its enemies.”
In Gaza, Lebanon and now Iran, he noted, Israel has taken out dozens of figures, reshaping the leadership structure in lasting ways.
Targeted killings were a key strategy in the early days of the Iran war. Top military and political officials up to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei were killed in the war’s opening salvos. Khamenei has been replaced by his son, Mojtaba, who is seen as even less compromising.
Kuperwasser said that targeted killings in Iran hadn’t transformed the theocracy but had changed it.
“Maybe there’s not ‘regime change’ yet, but there is ‘change in regime.’ The people are not the same people,” he said.
Killing leaders can also backfire
In past instances, targeted killings have served to radicalize followers or members of political movements and militant groups, elevating more extreme successors or turning slain leaders into martyrs with enduring influence.
Northeastern University political scientist Max Abrahms said data from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinian territories shows violence against civilians spikes after targeted killings.
“Leadership decapitation is risky,” he said in an interview in March. “When you take out a leader that prefers some degree of restraint and had influence over subordinates, then there’s a very good chance that, upon that person’s death, you’re going to see even more extreme tactics.”
Targeted killings can create leadership vacuums and the potential for change, but only when coupled with a coherent political strategy, Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said in March.
“You can decapitate an organization or defeat it militarily, but if you don’t follow through politically, it doesn’t work. And it’s hard to see how this goes much further,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Fatma Khaled in Cairo contributed to this report.
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