Enab Baladi – Hussam al-Mahmoud
On July 31, Israel assassinated the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), Ismail Haniyeh, at his residence during a visit to Tehran. This occurred hours after his meeting with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
This incident sparked Iranian anger, leading Tehran to issue consecutive statements regarding the Iranian response, which has not yet occurred, to the assassination of Tehran’s guest. On the same day, Iran’s Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ali Khamenei, issued instructions to directly attack Israel, citing the mobilization of militias operating in the region and countries of the “Axis of Resistance,” including Syria, to respond to the operation.
According to media reports, the Iranians are considering drone and missile attacks on bases in Tel Aviv and Haifa as retaliation for the assassination of Haniyeh, according to three Iranian officials, including two senior officials in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), who spoke to The New York Times.
Khamenei’s instructions came during an emergency meeting of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, shortly after Iran announced the assassination of Haniyeh.
Iranian military leaders are considering another drone and missile attack from Yemen, Syria, and Iraq on military targets around Tel Aviv and Haifa, while ensuring they avoid striking civilian targets, according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.
Iran’s engagement of Syria in the matter of the response did not last long, as Reuters reported on August 1 that five high-ranking Iranian officials will meet with representatives of Iran’s regional allies from Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen to discuss the possible response to Israel after the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran.
According to the same sources, representatives of Iran’s Palestinian allies, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, as well as the Tehran-backed Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Iraqi Islamic Resistance groups will attend the meeting that was scheduled to take place on August 1.
The purpose of the meeting is to conduct a comprehensive assessment to find the best and most effective ways to respond to Israel. Khamenei and senior members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps were scheduled to participate in the meeting. Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, said, “Iran’s and the resistance front’s response is currently being studied, and this will definitely happen, and the Zionist regime will undoubtedly regret it.”
Despite Israel not explicitly claiming responsibility for the assassination operation in Tehran, and the United States denying prior knowledge of the planned assassination from two months earlier, Tehran holds full responsibility for Israel, which has threatened over the past months to target Hamas leaders wherever they are.
Iran first
Following this assassination operation, the Syrian regime has not presented a position in solidarity with Hamas as much as it has shown solidarity with Iran, whose sovereignty and territory were violated by the assassination of a high-ranking guest on its land. The Syrian Foreign Ministry issued a statement after the assassination operation, condemning the “blatant Zionist aggression,” calling it a “terrorist attack” that led to Haniyeh’s “martyrdom,” expressing its support and solidarity with Iran, and offering condolences to the Palestinian people without specifically addressing Ismail Haniyeh in more detail.
Similarly, the speech delivered by the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah, the day after the announcement of the killing of the prominent leader in the party Fawad Shaker in an Israeli raid on the southern suburb of Beirut, hours before Haniyeh’s assassination, did not mention Syria’s role or presence or lack thereof in responding to two significant Israeli assassinations, considering Syria as part of the “Axis of Resistance” and according to the principle of “unity of fields” adopted by the axis.
Despite Hamas seeking to reconnect with the Syrian regime after a decade of severed ties, the declared relations between the two sides were not at their best days. Hamas, which has historical ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, opposed from its Damascus office the regime’s control over power in Syria. With the outbreak of the revolution in 2011, Hamas leaders publicly supported the peaceful popular protests calling for the overthrow of the regime and Bashar al-Assad’s departure, cutting their relations with the regime and closing its offices in Damascus.
In 2021, the movement sought to re-establish closer ties with the regime, mediated by Lebanese Hezbollah. Then, a delegation of Palestinian factions, without the participation of Ismail Haniyeh, visited Damascus to meet with al-Assad on October 19, 2022, and both sides agreed to resume relations and “turn the page on the past.”
However, from the Syrian regime’s perspective, the past was not entirely erased, as al-Assad, in August 2023, described Hamas’s position as a “mixture of betrayal and hypocrisy” as it was claiming resistance, indicating that relations between them exist “within a general principle.”
Al-Assad in a difficult position
Researcher in international relations Mahmoud Alloush explained to Enab Baladi that the priority of the Syrian regime is currently to minimize the potential risks and costs. Thus, it will seek to avoid direct involvement in this war, facing a dilemma in this matter with Iran’s desire to exploit its presence on the Syrian front, especially in the Golan Heights, to turn it into a confrontation front with Israel, particularly after the war took a dangerous turn with the assassination of Haniyeh.
According to Alloush, al-Assad will have difficulty managing his position in this war, leaning towards avoiding involving Syria, and his recent visit to Moscow suggests that Russia is concerned about attempts to drag Syria into a regional war. The Russian president seeks to shield the regime from the repercussions of such a potential war as its risks increase because any extension of this war onto Syrian soil could contribute to reshaping the military status quo, especially in northern Syria. This explains Moscow’s desire to push for rapprochement between Turkey and the regime to enhance protection from the potential risks of any war on the military status quo in northern Syria.
The researcher believes Iran’s view of al-Assad’s position in this war depends on its possible paths. If it remains an escalation without reaching a regional war, Iran might tolerate al-Assad’s attempt to keep Syria from being a proxy battleground in this war. However, if it leads to a full-scale confrontation, Iran’s calculations and those of the regime and Russians would be different.
“Al-Assad faces a tough test in this matter, realizing that the costs of direct involvement in this unlikely war would be high. He knows that allowing Iran to use Syria and turn it into a confrontation ground with Israel in any potential regional war will have costs,” added the researcher, noting the difficulty in envisioning how al-Assad will manage his position during this war, as it depends on the possible ramifications of the war.
Previously, regional circumstances placed the Syrian regime in a somewhat similar position when Israel targeted and destroyed the Iranian embassy in Damascus, killing Iranian General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, advisor Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, and five of their companions.
The Iranian response at that time consisted of dozens of missiles that fell in open areas, causing no casualties or human losses among Israelis.