Israelis went to sleep last night following the news of the assassination of Hezbollah terrorist leader Fuad Shukr, its most senior military commander, in central Beirut. While his fate was unknown though presumed that he was killed, Israel unusually claimed responsibility with the Minister of Defense noting that the Islamic terrorist group had crossed a red line, presumably with the massacre of 12 Druze children in the Golan Heights on Saturday, and the death of another 28-year-old Jewish civilian (and massive fires) in the Galilee.
Israelis woke up to the news today of the assassination of Hamas terrorist leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed overnight in Tehran, in a suspected airstrike that's been blamed on Israel but for which Israel has not taken responsibility. Haniyeh, one of the founding members of the Hamas terror group, had been targeted by assassins before, but was believed to be relatively untouchable living a luxurious life in a Qatari resort hotel.
It was reported with the hit on Shukr that Israel informed the US in advance, making statements from the US Defense Secretary about the US coming to Israel's assistance quite relevant, along with reports that the US is moving warships into the eastern Mediterranean.
It's unclear if the US was informed about the assassination of Haniyeh in advance, assuming it was an Israeli operation. Time will tell as to who planned and implemented it but there are several significant things to note:
- Both assassinations underscored incredible intelligence capabilities, the ability to implement a precise hit in the center of two densely populated cities, to do so without massive civilian casualties, and in the case of Haniyeh, to reach more than 1000 miles from Israel, if indeed it was an Israeli strike.
- The distance of the latter is complemented by Israel's reprisal against a Houthi controlled Yemeni port last week, following the Houthis' successful targeting of central Tel Aviv in a brazen Iranian-backed drone attack.
- It's noteworthy that on April 13, Iran’s Islamic regime launched a massive drone, cruise and ballistic missile attack on Israel, most of which were shot down by combined Israeli, US, Jordanian, and believed to be Saudi forces. This followed the targeted assassination of Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) in central Damascus. There has never been such a large ballistic missile attack in history.
- Between the assassination of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah leader Shukr (claimed by Israel), and Haniyeh, also an Iranian-backed Hamas terrorist leader but in central Tehran, it's hard to believe that Iran will not look to retaliate.
- While they took place in short order one after the other, the timing was more of two opportunities. But make no mistake, these were not spontaneous, but carefully planned for some time, and executed masterfully.
- Other terrorist leaders should realize that they are not safe, from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hiding in Lebanon, to the Iranian Islamic regime Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini, and everyone in between. If they don’t already know they should not be sleeping in the same place more than one night in a row, if they even feel safe to sleep anywhere, now they know for sure.
- Israelis are on edge, aware that an escalation can come from Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Iran, or both.
- Publicly, Palestinian Arabs are displaying anger with these assassinations, engaging in broad strikes, and organic terror attacks today against Israelis. Privately, some/many are celebrating, realizing that Hamas has only done harm to their cause, absconding with tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars making the terrorist leaders wealthy, and using hundreds of millions more to build a terrorist infrastructure for which they are human shields, rather than for the well-being of Palestinian Arabs. How this plays out there, only time will tell.
- As Haniyeh was one of the key leaders of Hamas, and "negotiators" engaged to secure the release of the remaining 115 hostages, 299 days after they were kidnapped to Gaza, it's reasonable to expect that there will be an indefinite setback in such negotiations of the hostages' release, if not an increase in Hamas-generated psychological warfare.
Personally, for some time, we have been preparing for a major escalation, stocking up on water and non-perishables, purchasing a small solar panel that can keep appliances charged assuming our power grid is interrupted, batteries for other appliances, and even finding an old non-electric phone to use in our old landline phone jack. Just in case. Our bedroom bomb shelter will be stocked as needed, including toys for my grandchildren when they come to visit. Just in case. And with the family coming home for Shabbat, we will leave lights on in case we all need to get to the bomb shelter at night. While as Orthodox Jews we usually don’t use phones and other devices on Shabbat, odds are I’ll keep some device on in case we need to hear security updates locally or nationally.
Tomorrow, new security protocols not withstanding, I am planning to go to the Golan to express condolences and through the Genesis 123 Foundation, bring the prayers of Christians from all over the world to the families of the 12 children who were massacred by the Iranian-made Hezbollah rocket on Saturday.