Haniyeh hit in Tehran reveals glaring security lapses, say experts
Experts suspect the assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh possibly used a special precision missile with special forces in Tehran guiding it to its target.
Experts suspect the assassination of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh possibly used a special precision missile with special forces in Tehran guiding it to its target.
It meant that such a strike would take out the Iran-backed terror-designated group’s figurehead while causing the least collateral damage.
Major Andrew Fox, a research fellow at the Henry Jackson Society and a former British paratrooper, said locating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh had made the assassination, early on Wednesday, nothing more than “fairly straightforward intelligence”.
Haniyeh made regular media appearances during his multiple visits to Tehran, making it an accessible target for Israel, which had promised Qatar not to strike him there—one of Hamas's two exile offices, alongside Turkey.
“They put themselves on the radar so it’s fairly straightforward intelligence work to find them. The time of day was very sensible. In Afghanistan we did night raids as we knew where the target would sleep.”
Based on his many years of experience, he said the likelihood of the cause of the strike was a missile launched from outside Iran and guided in with precision laser technology, operated by special forces on the ground.
“The soldier on the ground points a laser pointer at the exact spot they want to hit so the laser guides the missile to the point of impact,” he said. “The UK, US and others have this technology.”
Causing minimal damage, it also came in almost unnoticed with very little sound to warn of its approach.
“There are kinetic missiles Israel has been using that kill using kinetic energy that essentially uses the speed and weight of the warhead to do the killing. We’ve seen that in strikes on kills where a classroom is hit that’s being used by Hamas. It explains why less people got killed and it was less noisy than an explosive warhead,” he explained.
What this also means is that, unlike the assassination in Beirut of Hezbollah’s top commander on Tuesday, Fuad Shuker, which injured at least 60 others and damaged a huge chunk of a large building, the impact is far less.
“It’s really clever to use this as it doesn’t wipe out a whole chunk of Tehran. There isn’t so much damage that Tehran is forced to retaliate with huge force. If they’d levelled a city block, Iran would have no choice but to be more aggressive than I think they will be. It was one house. It’s embarrassing for Iran but in terms of damage it’s not a huge beast,” added Maj Fox.
Israeli intelligence and security analyst, Ronen Solomon, said the hit in Tehran will be a major embarrassment for Iran. While in Qatar, Haniyeh has a huge circle of security around him. However, he had just one bodyguard in Tehran, ironically, the one place he felt he was safe.
But he left a huge footprint leading Israel straight to him. “Ismail Haniyeh came with a group of Palestinians so there is a wide [intelligence] signature. They came from Qatar and usually it’s by a private plane,” he explained.
The root of the strike remains unconfirmed by either Iran or Israel but Solomon said what was unusual was the lack of sound and sight.
“Usually if there is an explosion we see it. You can hear it. We didn’t get this on this occasion. If there was a strike, north of Tehran there is the Caspian Sea,” he said, suggesting this was the direction of attack.
“If I’m a special unit with guided missiles I can do it from the sea with roaming missiles" The Caspian Sea in the north is not far from Tehran, he said.
With Israel’s close ally, Azerbaijan, bordering Iran, Solomon says the chances of it having been used to launch the attack are high. Just a few hundred kilometers away, it already has Israeli weaponry and shared intelligence.
However, he says another option, as has been seen before, is a drone attack that could be done with a range of 30km sent from inside Tehran, launched by an opposition cell.
Such a method would be realistic for an operation of this kind, and Israel has this capability as has been seen in the past with operations Iran accused Israel of plotting.
“This would have been a very quick operation with little time to plan after the announcements he was in Tehran which also shows the determination of Israel,” Solomon said.
However, with both sides staying silent on the details, the operation remains a mystery. “There wasn’t any kinetic signature and Israel hasn’t taken responsibility, so it’s still unclear, which is good for Israel as it gives room for denial,” he said.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has already said, “We don’t want war, but we are preparing for all possibilities.”
Iran's Revolutionary Guards said that "the killing of Haniyeh will be met with a harsh and painful response," and Ali Larijani, adviser to supreme leader Ali Khamenei, said Israel will "fall into a new quagmire" due to the attack.
These attacks became more frequent after July 2020, when a massive explosion occurred at the Natanz uranium enrichment site in central Iran, destroying one of the buildings. In November of that year, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a key figure in Iran’s nuclear program, was assassinated in a roadside attack near Tehran. Western and Israeli intelligence had long suspected Fakhrizadeh of being the architect of Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program.
Fakhrizadeh’s elimination rattled most echelons of the Iranian government, with different agencies subtly blaming one another for shortcomings that had led to the incident. It strengthened existing concerns that Israel had a strong network within Iran capable of using sophisticated weapons, having detailed information about the movement of key targets, and could pull off a complicated assassination and disappear without a trace.
However, spectacular attacks did not end with the killing of the top nuclear operative.
Since Fakhrizadeh’s assassination, which reportedly involved a high-tech, remote-operated machine gun, numerous small and large-scale attacks have continued to target various sites. While Israel has never acknowledged its involvement, it is widely believed that many incidents at military and industrial sites were the result of Israeli sabotage or drone attacks.
This latest attack occurred days after Iran’s Minister of Intelligence hailed the "dismantling of Mossad's infiltration network" as a pivotal achievement of former president Ebrahim Raisi's administration.
Esmail Khatib remarked last week, "Mossad's infiltration network had been assassinating our scientific figures and sabotaging critical centers. Under the thirteenth administration, this network and its access and capabilities have been eliminated."
Despite the persistent denials by Iranian officials, the series of targeted killings and sabotage reached such a critical point in 2021 that a former Minister of Intelligence, Ali Younesi, had expressed grave concern over the infiltration of Israel's intelligence agency, Mossad, into various sectors of the country, warning that officials should be "worried for their lives."
Younesi stated in 2021 that over the past "10, 15, or 20 years," while the country has been purged of all groups he labeled as "terrorist," there has been a significant failure in addressing the infiltration by foreign intelligence services, particularly those of Israel.
He emphasized that in the "last ten years, Mossad's infiltration into various sectors of the country is so extensive that all officials of the Islamic Republic should be worried for their lives."
In April 2021, another explosion at Natanz, this time in an underground part of the sprawling installation, hit the power supply for centrifuges and caused extensive damage that reportedly needed months of repairs. Some reports said that thousands of uranium enriching machines, called centrifuges, were destroyed.
Coupled with physical attacks, Israel allegedly launched many cyberattacks that created massive disruptions in Iran. In October 2021 a cyberattack knocked out a government database that issues fuel subsidized fuel cards to the population.
In May 2022, Revolutionary Guard intelligence operative Colonel Hassan Khodaei was shot five times outside of his home in Tehran. In May and June, following the assassination, two scientists reportedly died from poison in their food. Ayoub Entezari, an aerospace engineer, worked on missile turbines for a military research center in Yazd, central Iran.
Suicide drones were used to attack a military facility in Isfahan on January 28, 2023. Senior intelligence sources told Western media and that Israel’s Mossad was involved in the attack. It was reported that the site was an advanced weapon-production facility.
What is embarrassing and dangerous for the Iranian regime is the apparent extensive infiltration of Israeli networks in Iran. Ismail Haniyeh’s targeted killing on July 31 will go down in history as one of the most remarkable military-intelligence coups by Israel in the past eight decades.
Though details remain scarce, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) early on confirmed that Haniyeh, the chief political leader of the terror group, was targeted at a residence in the capital, along with an Iranian bodyguard. Hamas has corroborated the killing, denouncing it as a “treacherous Zionist raid”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the United States was neither involved in nor made aware of the assassination of the Hamas leader, refusing to respond directly to the news.
Blinken emphasized the urgent need for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, noting its critical importance for the hostages and Palestinian civilians suffering. He stressed the broader regional implications of the conflict and reaffirmed Washington’s efforts to stabilize Gaza and prevent further escalation.
European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell also refrained from commenting directly on the reported assassination, but instead emphasized the urgent need to de-escalate tensions to prevent a wider conflict that could impact the entire region and beyond.
The comments follow Israel's claim on Tuesday of having eliminated a Hezbollah commander allegedly responsible for a deadly attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel has not officially confirmed its role in the assassination of the Hamas leader.
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Condemnations were quickly issued by Iran's allies Russia and China. Moscow has urged all parties to avoid actions that could escalate into a major conflict, while Beijing's foreign ministry warned that the incident might lead to further regional instability.
As Iran vowed to retaliate against Israel over the killing, some politicians in the Western world rejoiced over the death of the Hamas leader.
British Conservative parliamentarian Tom Tugendhat responded to a social media post from Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who vowed revenge for the killing. Tugendhat condemned Tehran as an "evil regime" that "murders hundreds of thousands of innocents at home and abroad and mourns only when their executioners are killed."
Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders openly welcomed the assassination, posting on X, “Good riddance!!” In a separate message, he warned Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, stating, “They will not be too happy now and probably not sleep too well either.”
Regional nations condemn, blame Israel
Numerous Middle Eastern nations have responded to the reported assassination, with many attributing the attack to Israel and warning of heightened regional tensions.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the assassination as a “despicable act” intended to undermine the Palestinian cause. He stated that “Zionist cruelty will never accomplish its objectives” and reiterated Turkey’s support for a sovereign Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. Haniyeh was reportedly scheduled to address Turkey’s parliament in August.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, blaming Israel for the attack, characterized it as a dangerous escalation that jeopardizes peace efforts in an already volatile region.
Israel had previously vowed to target Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders in response to the terror group's October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,200 deaths and approximately 250 hostages.
Qatar also condemned the assassination as a “heinous crime and serious escalation,” with its foreign ministry warning that it, along with “Israel’s reckless behavior,” will lead to regional chaos and “undermine peace prospects.” Qatar, which had hosted Haniyeh and plays a crucial role in cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas over the war in Gaza, criticized the act for its potential destabilizing effects.
Haniyeh, who had led Hamas politically since 2017, had been living in exile in Qatar.
Experts say Iran's security vulnerabilities exploited by Israel
The widely believed Israeli operation would not be the first of its kind. As news of Haniyeh’s death circulated, experts and observers commented on the nature and sophistication of the operation on Iranian soil, offering analysis about how Iran’s security apparatus was so weak that this was able to happen.
Former Australian hostage Kylie Moore-Gilbert, who had been held in Iran for over two years, recently penned an article, arguing that Iranian security agencies have struggled to counter Israeli activities within their country. She attributed this difficulty to the authoritarian nature of the state, which she says values loyalty over skill, resulting in less effective counterintelligence and making it easier for external actors to operate within Iran.
Israel, Moore-Gilbert wrote, has leveraged Tehran’s governance failures and economic issues by likely offering financial rewards or residency to collaborators – with Iran’s internal weaknesses having turned into a major vulnerability.
“Having shown itself over the decades to be impervious to ideological moderation or reform from within, it has become so hated that its own people—its biggest victims—are willing to embrace the possibility that the enemy of their enemy is their friend," she wrote.
Iran expert Karim Sadjadpour took to X, citing Moore-Gilbert’s article, asserting that “Israel has managed to conduct numerous high-level assassinations inside Iran in part due to the Islamic Republic's profound unpopularity and incompetence.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.