A ceasefire might now be the Israelis’ best course of action

Editorial: Hamas cannot be defeated in any conventional sense – either by eliminating its senior officials or by completely flattening Gaza. As the world awaits a response to a round of assassinations, escalation in such an unstable region would risk things spiralling wildly out of control

Demonstrators with a portrait of assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran (AFP via Getty)

As the number killed in the Israel-Hamas war exceeds some 40,000 people, it’s at least worth noting that some of Israel’s most potent enemies in Hamas and Hezbollah have met their end not through some indiscriminate bombing raid or the denial of food and medical aid but via intelligence-led assassination.

Two such figures to have met their end in recent days are Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander killed by an airstrike in Beirut, and Ismail Haniyeh, a former Hamas prime minister of Gaza and ​​the terror organisation’s most senior official taken out since the war started, who was hit by an “airborne guided projectile” while visiting Tehran, according to Iranian state media. Perhaps if Israel had followed such an approach in its relentless search for Hamas leaders and the hostages taken in the 7 October atrocities, many innocent lives would have been saved.

Now, Israel and the world wait to see what the latest in these tit-for-tat moves will be. Shukr, after all, was revenge for the Hezbollah bombing which killed 12 civilians in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights; Haniyeh was simply another of the many Hamas leaders Israel pledged to eliminate in its current war.

All expect some form of retaliatory action from the Hamas-Hezbollah-Iran axis, and all hope that the reality won’t live up to the rhetoric issued in recent hours. President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran, for example, whose inauguration celebrations were so rudely interrupted by the deadly Israeli missile, vows to “make the terrorist invaders regret their cowardly action”.

For its part, Hamas declared: “Hamas is a concept and an institution and not persons. Hamas will continue on this path regardless of the sacrifices and we are confident of victory.” That, it must be conceded, speaks to a much more fundamental truth about the nature of this terrorist organisation and its political wing – that it cannot be defeated in any conventional sense of the term, even if Gaza is completely flattened (which is, of course, what is being undertaken).

The chances are that not much will come of such threats. But it is also true that any escalation in such an unstable region risks things spiralling out of control – though this is more likely where Hamas is concerned than the other players, as the armageddon triggered by October 7 was most likely highly unwelcome in Tehran.

In the strange way of the region, a light-to-moderate series of Iranian, Hezbollah and Hamas rocket attacks on Israel, mostly harmlessly bouncing off its formidable air defence shield, would be sufficient to satisfy pride and allow matters to stabilise, albeit still with a horrific war in Gaza dragging on. Iran’s other semi-autonomous ally, the Houthi militia in Yemen, has proved quiescent since Israel devastated the port of Hodeidah 10 days ago, in retaliation for a prior Houthi rocket raid on Tel Aviv. The Houthis might also join in the latest round of violence.

The situation in the region, then, remains tense, and the increasing frequency of attacks by the principal protagonists, Israel and Iran, on one another’s sovereign territory (including foreign embassies and consulates) is a particularly worrying development.

The fact is that Israel is already a nuclear power, albeit undeclared, and that Iran cannot now be far away from becoming one. It is possible that the doctrines of deterrence and mutually assured destruction will prevent the two from ever engaging in an all-out nuclear conflagration, but it also means that they can continue indefinitely fighting their proxy wars across the region and engaging in low-level direct aerial and missile confrontations.

None of this is good for those, most obviously the Palestinians, who pay the price for such historical enmities, and for the cynical way Hamas uses the people of Gaza as human shields, for propaganda weapons, and to try and drag America and Iran into direct confrontation.

Though the leaders in both countries find it politically inconvenient and embarrassing to admit as much, a ceasefire in Gaza would suit the current interests of the state of Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is their current leaders, the Netanyahu administration and the ayatollahs who find this constant state of hostility politically expedient. And that is why there has not been much respite in Gaza, and won’t be until one or other of the Israeli and Iranian regimes (and preferably both) change.