Israel has once again ratcheted up its targeted assassination operations against Hamas and Hizbullah commanders in Gaza and Lebanon carried out by Military Intelligence, the General Security Service (Shin Bet), and Mossad.
Most recently, Israel announced that it had killed Izz Al-Din Al-Haddad, commander of Hamas’ military wing and head of combat support operations across Gaza. He also played a major role in running the Al-Qassam Brigades’ Majd unit, which is responsible for hunting down and exposing informants and collaborators working for Israel. He is also believed to have been one of the planners of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation in October 2023.
Prior to this, Israel also assassinated Raed Saad, a member of the Al-Qassam Brigades’ military council, in December 2025, Mohamed Al-Houli, deputy commander of the Central Brigade and head of the intelligence division in that zone, in January 2026, and Iyad Al-Shanbari, chief of the Al-Qassam Brigades’ intelligence apparatus in Gaza, in April.
On 6 May, Israel killed the commander of Hizbullah’s Radwan Force, although it did not disclose his name. On 17 May, it killed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) leader in a strike near Baalbek in eastern Lebanon.
Why has Israel chosen to escalate its assassinations at this time? There are ten factors behind this escalation.
First, Israel remains determined to restore the credibility of its “overwhelming deterrence” strategy, which had been shaken by the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. Towards this end, it is hunting down individuals it claims were responsible for planning and carrying this out.
Statements by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defence Minister Israel Katz, and Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir following the assassination of Al-Haddad confirm this. According to Netanyahu, Al-Haddad was responsible for killing, abducting, and injuring thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers.
Al-Haddad is the latest in a series of operations targeting prominent Hamas figures, most notably Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh during a visit to Tehran, Yahya Al-Sinwar, head of Hamas’ political bureau in Gaza, Mohamed Al-Sinwar, field commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Mohamed Deif, commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Marwan Issa, deputy commander of the Al-Qassam Brigades; and Abu Obeida, Hamas’ military spokesman.
Israel also killed Ahmed Al-Ghandour, commander of the Northern Brigade, Ayman Nofal, commander of the Central Brigade, Rafeh Salama, commander of the Khan Younis Brigade, and Mohamed Shabana, commander of the Rafah Brigade. All of them, together with Al-Haddad, formed the Al-Qassam Brigades’ inner command council.
Avi Ashkenazi, a military and security affairs commentator for the Israeli Maariv newspaper, wrote that Al-Haddad had topped Israel’s “7 October revenge list”. Israeli media had also dubbed Al-Haddad “Fox of the Al-Qassam Brigades” and the “Ghost of Al-Qassam” because of his ability to elude or survive multiple assassination attempts, such as those carried out in 2008, 2012, and 2021.
Al-Haddad’s wife, daughter, and several other civilians were also killed in the strike.
Second, targeted assassination is a pillar of Israeli strategic doctrine. In systematically targeting the political and military leaders of Palestinian resistance organisations, Israel seeks to disrupt their command-and-control structures, weaken their morale, and degrade their military capabilities.
Since the “ceasefire” in Gaza went into effect on 10 October 2025, Israel has killed dozens of Al-Qassam Brigades’ commanders and officers, as well as military and political leaders of other Palestinian factions. Israel has also reportedly planned operations to assassinate Hamas figures abroad.
Israel is relentless in its pursuit of its targets. It is therefore expected to continue to pursue survivors of previous assassination attempts, such as Mohamed Awda, who headed Al-Qassam intelligence at the time of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation and later assumed command of the Northern Gaza Brigade, succeeding Ahmed Al-Ghandour who was killed in November 2023.
Other figures who have survived Israeli assassination attempts include Hussein Fayyad, commander of the Beit Hanoun district, Nafeth Subaih, an Al-Qassam Brigades veteran and commander of the Daraj and Tuffah district, Imad Aql, responsible for the support and logistics system, and Fayez Baroud, a well-known Al-Qassam figure.
In a weekly Israeli government meeting on 17 May, Netanyahu claimed that Israel is very close to completing the mission of eliminating every architect of the 7 October attack and hostage-taking operation. “We are tightening our grip on Hamas,” he said. “We know exactly what our mission is, and our mission is one thing: to ensure that Gaza will never again pose a threat to Israel.”
In this regard, one trend in the current Israeli commentary holds that Al-Haddad’s assassination will strengthen the Israeli demand for Hamas leaders to leave Gaza. It argues that Al-Haddad’s assassination shows the Hamas leadership and everyone else involved in the 7 October attacks that Israeli intelligence and its air force know how to reach them, even if they remain hidden in tunnels. Therefore, exile may be their best option for survival.
OTHER FACTORS: The third factor is that assassinations are a means to pressure Hamas in the framework of ceasefire negotiations, with the aim of forcing the Palestinian resistance movement to accept full disarmament.
Hamas and the other factions reject this, insisting instead on implementing the provisions of the agreement’s first phase before moving to the second phase. The first phase calls for a complete halt to military hostilities.
Fourth, and related to the foregoing, is the Israeli strategy of creating uncertainty regarding future security arrangements in Gaza, including its commitments to demilitarise the Strip. This helps account for the long delay in establishing the International Stabilisation Force and the Palestinian internal security force, which are supposed to assume responsibility for such matters.
The steps needed to form these bodies remain unresolved, including funding and staffing Palestinian governance mechanisms. Also lacking is a clear framework for transferring local authority from Hamas to the new bodies.
Fifth, the assassinations also aim to impair Hamas’ decision-making capacity during the coming phase. Al-Haddad’s assassination occurred at a moment when Hamas was finalising the election of a new head of its political bureau, with the competition largely between Khaled Mashal and Khalil Al-Hayya, the latter considered the frontrunner to become the resistance movement’s political bureau chief.
Sixth, another aim of Israel’s “decapitation” strategy is to sap Palestinian morale and resistance, especially in Gaza. According to some reports, the death of Al-Haddad, who had succeeded in reactivating and restructuring Al-Qassam since the ceasefire, sent shockwaves through the ranks of younger resistance fighters.
Meanwhile, Israel has never let up on its indiscriminate bombardment of civilians on the pretext of targeting Hamas. According to the Palestinian News Agency WAFA on 9 May, the death toll from the war on Gaza since 7 October 2023 has exceeded 72,736, in addition to 172,535 wounded. Since the ceasefire declared on 11 October last year, Israel has killed more than 850 civilians and injured 2,433, while 770 bodies have been recovered from beneath the rubble.
Seventh, Netanyahu claims that Israel has expanded its control to over 60 per cent of Gaza’s territory, after previously controlling 53 per cent. Here, as in Lebanon, it uses security pretexts to advance its territorial goals, despite the withdrawal commitments it made under the truce.
Hamas, for its part, retains its grip over only a narrow strip of land along Gaza’s coast. Israel is preparing to resume open war in Gaza, now that Hamas no longer possesses political leverage in the form of hostages. Despite Hamas’ cooperation in organising the smooth return of hostages to Israel, Washington has exerted no pressure on Israel to meet its commitments.
The same thing applies to Lebanon, where Israel is also using “security” pretexts to impose its de facto occupation of Southern Lebanon by levelling dozens of Lebanese villages, displacing thousands of civilians, and erasing and desecrating historical and religious landmarks, despite its ceasefire agreement with Lebanon.
Eighth, US President Donald Trump has given Israel a green light to kill anyone it claims has used violence against it. Netanyahu effectively boasted of having a free hand following the assassinations of Al-Haddad and the Radwan Force commander in Lebanon. Although the Axios news site reported on 15 May that the Trump administration has stressed the need to avoid a return to large-scale military operations in Gaza and to prevent the collapse of existing understandings, the situation on the ground is moving in the opposite direction.
Ninth, the assassinations send a message to Israel’s politically divided domestic front where Israeli politicians Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid have united under the banner of “Beyahad” (Together) to bring down Netanyahu’s ruling coalition. The anti-Netanyahu alliance hopes to secure at least 61 seats in the upcoming Knesset elections.
Netanyahu is attempting to convince the Israeli public that the assassinations and tactical military gains Israel has achieved under his leadership will soon bring the long-elusive decisive victory over Hamas and reverse the effects of 7 October.
Lastly, at a broader level, the Israeli targeted assassination policy is part of its strategy of sustaining multi-front pressure against the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance”. This strategy aims to disperse the adversary’s energies and resources across multiple theatres, exhaust its defensive capacities, and impose a volatile and unpredictable operational tempo.
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*The writer is head of the Arab and Regional Unit at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 21 May, 2026 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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