In the early hours of July 31 the Chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in his residence in Tehran. Hamas subsequently commented that Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.” “Hamas declares to the great Palestinian people and the people of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free people of the world, brother leader Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” the statement added. Haniyeh has led Hamas since 2017, although having resided abroad since 2019 his influence is thought to have been eclipsed by that of Yehya Sinwar, who leads the group in the Gaza Strip itself. The assassination notably follows an Israeli airstrike in April which killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren in the Gaza Strip. Iranian sources notably have not confirmed Hamas claims that the assassination was conducted by air strike, which would have serious implications regarding the state of the country’s air defences. Speculation has already grown that if confirmed to be an air strike, the attack would likely have been carried out by F-35 fifth generation fighters, which have advanced radar evading stealth capabilities optimised to penetrating multi-layered air defence networks.
Against targets in Gaza and Lebanon, Israel’s F-35 fleet has been able to sustain an unusually high tempo of operations for a famously maintenance intensive aircraft due to a surge in supplies of parts, usually in short supply, from the United States and many of its European allies. Washington has also supplied guided air launched weapons in considerable quantities. The F-35’s short range prevents it from reaching Iran without refuelling in the air, with Israel speculated to have also developed a means of using external fuel tanks before dropping them to restore the aircraft’s stealth profile before approaching Iranian airspace. Nevertheless, Iranian systems such as the Russian-supplied Rezonans-NE were previously considered capable of detecting F-35s in full stealth mode, although not able to provide targeting data to fire on them. If confirmed, the assassination by airstrike may lead Iran to considerably increase investments in its air defence, possibly by acquiring systems such as the KJ-500 airborne early warning and control system or accelerating the deployment of Su-35 fighters with L-band radars.