After years of pursuit, Israel killed the commander of Hamas’s armed wing, Izz al-Din al-Haddad , in Gaza last week.
Describing him as a key architect of the 7 October 2023 attacks, Israel framed the "complex intelligence-driven strike" as a significant battlefield achievement.
Just days later, his successor, Mohammed Odeh , was killed in an airstrike on Tuesday “after months of intelligence surveillance in order to track his movements,” according to Israel’s military.
Taken together, the assassinations - despite a US-brokered ceasefire - appear designed to convey the message that Israel has achieved a significant intelligence breakthrough inside Hamas’s top leadership.
Analysts, however, say the timing of the killings points to another dynamic at play: mounting domestic political pressure amid a prolonged war as high-stakes elections loom. The politics of war in Israel From a military perspective, the targeting of figures like al-Haddad and Odeh would require sustained surveillance, infiltration capabilities, and real-time intelligence coordination.
Israeli officials have framed the operation as evidence of continued penetration into Hamas's command structure, even after nearly two years of war .
However, analysts have cautioned against reading such operations solely through a strategic lens.
"The timing and framing of the operation are not neutral. They are designed to serve an internal Israeli audience as much as they reflect developments on the ground,” Mustafa Ibrahim, a Palestinian political analyst from Gaza, told The New Arab. “What we are seeing is not only a military briefing, but a carefully constructed political message that is meant to restore confidence inside Israel at a moment of deep public debate over the war’s trajectory, its costs, and its unresolved objectives."
Netanyahu's government has faced mounting criticism over its handling of the war's objectives, particularly the inability to decisively dismantle Hamas or secure a comprehensive post-war framework. In this context, military operations carry significant domestic weight.
"When Israel presents an assassination of this level, it is immediately translated into a narrative of control, intelligence superiority, and progress. This is important domestically, especially for a government facing pressure, criticism, and questions about whether it has achieved anything decisive in Gaza,” Ibrahim told TNA .
“The message is less about the immediate battlefield outcome and more about reinforcing a sense that the war is still being managed effectively," he added. Political analyst in Gaza, Adel Yassin, goes further, suggesting that military operations themselves have become embedded in Israel's domestic political cycle. "There is a pattern in which war itself becomes a mechanism for generating political legitimacy," he told The New Arab , pointing to the way military announcements are often translated into messages for Israeli voters. "In practice, every major operation or assassination is quickly absorbed into domestic political discourse and framed as proof of decisive leadership. This is especially significant in a context where public trust is fragile, and the government is under sustained pressure over its handling of the war," he said. In this sense, Israel’s military operations are no longer communicated only as security measures, but packaged as political signals.
"Successes are amplified, setbacks are managed through messaging, and the overall war narrative becomes part of a broader effort to maintain political stability at home, even when the strategic picture remains complex and unresolved," Yassin said. The impact on Hamas Israel’s war narrative has increasingly relied on presenting targeted killings as strategic turning points, but while such operations may temporarily bolster Netanyahu's position, their long-term military impact remains uncertain, and the political benefits are often short-lived.
"The problem is not in carrying out operations, but in converting them into lasting political achievements. Without that, even high-profile assassinations remain tactically significant but strategically limited," analyst Mohammed Abu Qamar told TNA .
Tactical operations are often elevated into strategic milestones by Israel, analyst Mustafa Ibrahim says, but they rarely produce a fundamental shift in the balance of power.
“Hamas continues to adapt, reorganise, and redistribute responsibilities, which means the structural dynamics of the conflict remain largely unchanged despite the intensity of the strikes," he added.
While the killing of senior commanders can disrupt operations temporarily, Hamas has historically demonstrated an ability to redistribute roles and regenerate leadership structures rather than collapse under targeted assassinations.
For Hamas, the loss of senior figures like al-Haddad and Odeh is part of a broader pattern of attrition that has intensified since the start of the war. The movement does not deny the scale of losses it has sustained in both leadership and infrastructure, but it continues to frame these losses within a narrative of organisational endurance .
A Hamas official in Gaza described the movement's structure as deliberately decentralised, arguing that leadership responsibilities are distributed in a way that reduces vulnerability to targeted killings. "The occupation is mistaken if it believes that removing individuals can change the nature of the system," he told The New Arab .
This reflects an organisational model that has evolved over years of sustained conflict with Israel: a shift from centralised command to more networked operational units, designed to maintain continuity even under heavy pressure.
A fighter from northern Gaza described the current battlefield reality as fragmented but persistent. "Operations have not stopped, but they are more dispersed. Each unit acts within a broader framework, but with greater independence than before," he told TNA .
Still, even within Hamas's internal discourse, there is a recognition that the war has created unprecedented strain. The loss of experienced commanders, combined with widespread destruction in Gaza, has forced adaptations that are reshaping how the movement functions on the ground.
Yet its public messaging remains focused on continuity. In its official statement mourning al-Haddad, Hamas emphasised that "the caravan continues," signalling both resilience and intent to project organisational stability despite ongoing losses.
For Israel, targeted killings are evidence of its reach and useful political tools, while for Hamas, they become part of a story of endurance under sustained attack.
Between these two narratives, however, the war continues to evolve without a clear resolution. Targeted killings may reshape command structures and alter operational dynamics, but they have not yet altered the fundamental trajectory of the conflict.
Instead, as past cycles of violence have shown, they risk reinforcing the very confrontation they are intended to weaken, producing not closure, but continuation in new and more complex forms. Mohammed Omer is a Palestinian writer and journalist from the Gaza Strip, focusing on stories in the occupied Palestinian territories and specialising in Israeli affairs Edited by Charlie Hoyle