Israel is killing Hamas leaders in quick succession

A week of targeted attacks on the militant group’s commanders is aimed at disrupting its ability to govern, as they concentrate on survival rather than leading.

Palestinians carry the body of Ismail Barhoum after he was killed in an Israeli army strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Picture: AP.

When Israel announced that it had killed Hamas’s de facto prime minister, Ismail Barhoum, it was a surprise to many in Gaza, who didn’t even realise he had been given the job. It was only five days earlier that an Israeli air strike had killed his predecessor.

The targeted killings were part of a wave of attacks that Israeli security forces have carried out against senior Hamas political operatives – attacks that aimed at crippling the militant group’s ability to govern but also highlighted Israel’s intelligence gathering in the enclave.

Israel has killed at least another four senior political figures in a week of strikes, including the deputy ministers of justice and interior, as well as the head of Hamas’s internal security agency. It also has targeted a number of senior and midranked military officials.

Former Israeli intelligence officers said the leadership killings help disrupt the U.S.-designated terrorist group’s rule over the enclave, forcing those who remain to prioritise survival over carrying out their tasks. They also hurt perceptions of Hamas’s ability to remain in control.

“I think it raises questions about Hamas’s ability not only to protect itself as a political, military actor, but the broader population,” said Sanam Vakil, a Middle East analyst at the U.K.’s Chatham House think tank. “That Israel is reoccupying and pushing for a different outcome here really showcases Hamas’s vulnerability.”

The Sunday night strike that killed Barhoum targeted him at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, where Hamas said he was receiving treatment. Israeli military spokesman Nadav Shoshani dismissed that and said Barhoum had been hiding out in the medical centre for weeks and holding meetings with other senior Hamas leaders.

A 16-year-old patient also was killed in the attack, which sparked a fire and injured several patients and staff, Palestinian health authorities said.

Hamas called Barhoum a member of its political bureau. Israel said he was the head of Hamas’s finances in Gaza before assuming his final role.

Palestinians inspect the damage after an Israeli strike in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Picture: AFP.

Israel ended a two-month ceasefire last week with a wave of air strikes followed by ground incursions aimed at pressuring Hamas to turn over the two dozen hostages believed to be alive in the Gaza Strip. The attacks have killed more than 600 people, pushing the death toll in the 17-month war to more than 50,000, according to Palestinian health authorities, who don’t say how many were combatants.

Hamas sparked the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, attacks that left around 1,200 dead and roughly 250 as hostages in Gaza. On Monday, Hamas released a video showing two male Israeli hostages, Elkana Bohbot and Yosef-Haim Ohana, alive and talking about worsening conditions in captivity, including a lack of food since Israel stopped aid to Gaza. The men mention the ceasefire and air strikes Israel launched across the strip over the past week, indicating the video was filmed recently.

Israel used the ceasefire to track Hamas leaders and refresh its target lists, the former Israeli intelligence officials said. Ilan Lotan, a former senior officer in Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, said some of the Hamas leaders dropped their guard during the ceasefire and moved around in public.

The group also staged elaborate public spectacles when turning over hostages who were swapped for Palestinian prisoners during the ceasefire, providing another opportunity to gather intelligence, analysts said.

Combined with intelligence from interrogations of detained militants and electronic spying, Israeli intelligence is now sitting on a replenished list of Hamas targets to kill as it attempts to break the group’s will to fight on and retain Israeli hostages.

“It was easier for Israel to go after them after the renewal of fighting, ” Lotan said.

A Hamas official accused Israel of exploiting the ceasefire to gather intelligence about the group’s officials and leaders.

Rescue workers inspect a room at Nasser hospital after it was hit by a targeted Israeli army strike in Khan Younis. Picture: AP.

Israel has long relied on targeted killings to weaken its enemies. It wiped out much of Hamas’s military leadership during the war and killed most of the top ranks of the Lebanese militia Hezbollah last fall, forcing it into a ceasefire that essentially ended more than a year of cross-border rocket fire.

Still, their usefulness is debated in Israeli security circles. Critics say leaders who are killed are often quickly replaced, sometimes by people more talented than their predecessors. The key, the former intelligence officials said, is that the killings happen rapidly, one after another, so officials can’t get comfortable in their new roles, disrupting the chain of command.

Hamas’s leader in Gaza, Mohammed Sinwar, younger brother of the former leader Yahya Sinwar, who was killed by Israel in October, has struggled to maintain control of Gaza because he is constantly in hiding and communicating only infrequently, Arab intelligence officials said.

Dow Jones