In late November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had given Israeli intelligence agency Mossad the green light “to act against the heads of Hamas wherever they are.” It was an indirect acknowledgment that Israel’s retribution campaign for the attack it suffered on Oct. 7 last year will likely involve assassinations abroad, since Hamas’s leadership isn’t based only in the Gaza Strip.
In late November, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had given Israeli intelligence agency Mossad the green light “to act against the heads of Hamas wherever they are.” It was an indirect acknowledgment that Israel’s retribution campaign for the attack it suffered on Oct. 7 last year will likely involve assassinations abroad, since Hamas’s leadership isn’t based only in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have since become more forthright about the implication. Ronen Bar, the head of interior Israeli intelligence service Shin Bet, said Israel will “assassinate the top Hamas people in Qatar and Turkey.”
“They are all dead men walking,” Jonathan Conricus, a former spokesperson of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), told Foreign Policy when asked about Hamas’s leadership.
Israel is clearly committed to its search for Hamas’s leaders across the region, even at the risk of expanding the conflict. On Jan. 2, six members of Hamas were killed in a drone strike in Beirut, Lebanon. Among those dead was Saleh al-Arouri, the deputy chief of Hamas’s political bureau and the first top-rung leader of the group to be killed since more than a thousand Israelis were slain on Oct. 7. Al-Arouri was one of the founders of the group’s armed wing and its de facto ambassador to Iran and Hezbollah, and he was suspected of routing funds and weapons to fighters in Gaza.
But even as Israeli authorities announce their intention to continue such international assassinations, they are aware that the path to achieving that goal is riddled with challenges. They know that it is easier to execute covert operations and assassinations in crisis-ridden or war-ravaged nations such as Lebanon and Syria compared to other countries hosting Hamas leaders—including a major military power, Turkey, and energy giant Qatar, both of which are also U.S. allies. Foreign Policy’s conversations with several former security officials in Israel indicate Mossad has been tasked with developing starkly different plans for each nation hosting Hamas.
Sarit Zehavi, the founder of an Israeli think tank called Alma Research and Education........