Haniyeh was staying at “a special residence” for war veterans in north Tehran when the compound was hit by an Israeli missile, killing the Hamas leader and his bodyguard.
The Israeli military’s ability to penetrate Iran’s much-vaunted air defences – which include state-of-the-art Russian-made S-300 systems – to launch their clinical strike is deeply embarrassing for the Iranian regime, especially as it comes so soon after Iran’s miserable effort to launch direct air attacks against Israel in April. Of the 300 or so Iranian missiles and drones fired at Israel then, only one reached its target, causing minimal damage.
Haniyeh was visiting Tehran to attend the swearing in ceremony for Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who won the recent election promising to improve ties with the outside world. The Hamas leader will also have been conducting talks with senior Iranian officials about how to proceed in the next stages of their confrontation with Israel.
Certainly, the prospect of any meaningful de-escalation in tensions between Iran and Israel taking place after the election of Iran’s so-called moderate president appears highly unlikely if recent events are anything to go by.
Since Pezeshkian, a former heart surgeon and health minister, won last month’s presidential elections, Iran-backed groups have escalated their attacks on Israel, killing Israeli schoolchildren in a playground and launching drone strikes against Tel Aviv – hardly the actions of people who are seeking to reduce tensions in the region.
Iran’s desire to expand its confrontation with Israel, by encouraging Hezbollah terrorists in southern Lebanon and Houthi rebels in Yemen to intensify their attacks, has made exceptional demands on the Israeli military. Apart from continuing the military offensive against Hamas in Gaza, the Israelis have hit Houthi positions in Yemen and Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, the most recent being a targeted airstrike that killed Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s commander in Beirut, which took place just hours before Haniyeh’s demise.
If the Israelis can take pride in their ability to wage war on so many fronts, they will also be aware that the necessity of doing so reflects the scale of the challenge they face from Iran and its nexus of terrorism. Nor is it a challenge that is exclusively confined to Israel, a fact that is finally dawning on Western leaders.
When Sir Keir Starmer announced Labour’s new defence review with such fanfare in early July, he made specific mention of Iran, together with other countries such as Russia and North Korea, presenting a “generational threat” to our wellbeing. His sentiments were echoed by Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the former Labour minister who is heading the new defence review, who warned that the UK, together with its allies, needed to counter the “deadly quartet” of China, Iran, Russia and North Korea.
If this is the case, then it is logical to conclude that it is in our national security interests to support Israel’s military operations against Iran and its proxies – including Hamas in Gaza. Iran, after all, is just as hostile to the West as it is to Israel.
The fact that Israel is fighting the West’s war, though, appears to be lost on Labour ministers who, rather than backing Jerusalem’s efforts, appear more interested in talking about imposing an arms embargo against Israel. Such a move would not only be entirely counter-productive to Israel’s efforts to defend itself against Iranian-inspired aggression, but to the security interests of the West.
If, as Labour is keen to inform us, the new Government is determined to make the defence of the realm one of its key priorities, then helping Israel to win its existential war against Iran would be a good place to start.