Israel is said to be preparing a long-term plan to hunt down Hamas leaders globally to prevent the group from resurrecting after the Gaza war.
The Wall Street Journal on December 1 quoted unnamed Israeli officials as saying that with orders from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the country's top intelligence agencies are planning to hunt down Hamas leaders living in countries such as Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar, as fighting in Gaza continues to erupt after a 7-day ceasefire.
Hamas gunmen take part in an anti-Israel protest march in Gaza City in May 2021. Photo: Reuters
The operation would be an extension of years of covert operations by Israeli intelligence that have been widely criticized, including posing as women to hunt Hamas militants in Beirut and posing as tourists to assassinate a Hamas leader in Dubai.
According to former Israeli officials, Israeli intelligence also planted a car bomb to assassinate a Hezbollah leader in Syria and used a remote-controlled rifle to kill Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in November 2020.
A senior commander of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said that scientist Fakhrizadeh was assassinated remotely using a "satellite-controlled system" and equipped with "artificial intelligence technology" without the presence of any assassins at the scene.
Regional countries such as Qatar, Lebanon, Iran, and Türkiye have long provided safe havens for senior Hamas members. Israeli intelligence has generally avoided targeting these countries to prevent unwanted diplomatic crises.
The new plans are seen as a second chance for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who ordered a failed assassination attempt in 1997 to poison Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan.
Netanyahu was then serving his first term as prime minister and ordered Israeli agents to assassinate Meshaal, one of the founders of Hamas, who was then living in Jordan.
The Israeli agents entered Jordan, posing as Canadian tourists, and attacked Meshaal outside the Hamas political office in Amman. One assassin sprayed poison into Meshaal's ear, but he and another member of the team were unable to escape.
Meshaal fell into a coma and Jordan threatened to end its peace treaty with Israel. US President Bill Clinton then pressured Prime Minister Netanyahu to end the crisis by sending the Mossad chief to Amman with an antidote to save Meshaal's life.
Khaled Meshaal, one of the founders of Hamas. Photo: AFP
Ultimately, to secure the freedom of the spies captured in Jordan, Israel agreed to release Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of Hamas, along with 70 Palestinian prisoners. Meshaal later described the failed assassination as a “turning point” that strengthened Hamas.
Twenty-six years later, to the surprise of some Israeli officials who wanted to keep the assassination plans secret, Netanyahu made his intentions public in a speech to the nation on November 22.
"I have instructed Mossad to go after Hamas leaders wherever they are," he said, referring to Israel's foreign intelligence agency.
Tel Aviv usually tries to keep such plans secret, but current Israeli leaders have shown no reluctance to reveal their intention to pursue Hamas for the October 7 raid, just as they did for those who carried out the attack at the 1972 Munich Olympics that killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.
Officials say Israel is working to kill or capture Hamas leaders in Gaza. The question facing Israeli leaders is not whether to kill Hamas leaders abroad, but where and how, even if doing so would violate international law.
This shows Tel Aviv's determination to ensure Hamas can never pose a serious threat again, regardless of the diplomatic consequences it might cause.
Israel’s plans to target Hamas leaders began to gain momentum soon after October 7. Sources say some Israeli officials wanted to launch an immediate operation to kill Meshaal and other Hamas leaders living abroad. They were particularly angered by a video showing Hamas leaders celebrating and praying while watching live coverage of the attack.
Israel is not believed to have carried out any assassination operations in Qatar, the Gulf state that has allowed Hamas to operate a political office in Doha for the past decade.
Qatar has been the most active in mediating with Hamas to free hostages from Gaza. Doha has arranged exchanges of dozens of hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails. According to reports from Tel Aviv, more than 130 hostages are still in Hamas hands.
According to anonymous Israeli officials, this is the reason why Tel Aviv refrained from carrying out an assassination campaign in Qatar, but the plan continued to be discussed.
From left, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Cabinet Secretary Benny Gantz at a press conference at Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, October 28. Photo: Reuters
Perhaps no country has conducted more assassination operations worldwide than Israel. According to the book Rise and Kill First by Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman, Tel Aviv has conducted more than 2,700 such operations since World War II.
At the 1972 Munich Olympics, Palestinian militants from the Black September group took a group of Israeli athletes and coaches hostage in the Olympic Village for two days. The crisis ended with a failed rescue attempt by West German police. All 11 Israeli hostages were killed.
Over the next 20 years, Israeli intelligence hunted down those involved in the Munich attack. They carried out assassinations in France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Lebanon. They used remote-controlled bombs hidden inside telephones in France and silenced guns to take out targets on the streets of Rome.
Among those involved in the years-long effort was Ehud Barak, then a young Israeli agent who would later become prime minister. In 1973, Barak, dressed as a woman, and a team of agents traveled to Beirut to kill three Palestinian gunmen linked to the Munich attack.
Although these assassinations sometimes backfire and cause diplomatic crises, Tel Aviv has not abandoned its campaign to target Hamas leaders.
Prime Minister Netanyahu's announcement of a worldwide hunt for Hamas leaders has sparked debate among former Israeli intelligence officials.
Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad, said Israel should not do this. He said that eliminating Hamas leaders would not eliminate the threat at its root. Instead, it would likely galvanize Hamas’s loyalists, making the threat even more dangerous.
"Hunting Hamas on a global scale and systematically trying to eliminate all of its leaders serves only a desire for revenge, not a plan to achieve a strategic goal," Halevy commented, calling the plan "illusory."
Amos Yadlin, a retired Israeli general who once headed military intelligence, said the operation was "what justice demands".
"All Hamas leaders, all those who participated in the attack, those who planned the attack, those who ordered the attack, must be brought to justice or eliminated," he stressed. "That is the right policy."
Vu Hoang (According to WSJ )
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