Major highlights of Israel's targeted killings

A pair of strikes on militant leaders in Beirut and Tehran has escalated tensions in a region already on edge and adds to a long list of targeted killings attributed to Israel.

Hamas said Israel was behind the assassination of its supreme leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran's capital, although there was no acknowledgement from Israel. And Israel claimed responsibility for a strike on Fouad Shukur, a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, that the military said killed him.

Both strikes threaten to drag the region into a broader conflagration after nearly 10 months of war in Gaza.

Here is a look at previous targeted assassinations attributed to Israel over the years:

July 2024

Israel targets Hamas’ shadowy military commander Mohammed Deif in a massive strike in the crowded southern Gaza Strip. The strike killed at least 90 people including children, according to local health officials. Deif's fate remains unknown.

April 2024

Two Iranian generals are killed in what Iran said was an Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate in Syria. The deaths prompt Iran to launch an unprecedented attack against Israeli territory, launching 300 missiles and drones, most of which are intercepted.

January 2024

An Israeli drone strike in Beirut kills Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official in exile as Israeli troops fight the militant group in Gaza.

December 2023

Seyed Razi Mousavi, a longtime adviser of the Iranian paramilitary Revolutionary Guard in Syria, is killed in a drone attack outside of Damascus. Iran blames Israel.

2019

An Israeli airstrike hits the home of Bahaa Abu el-Atta, a senior Islamic Jihad commander in the Gaza Strip, killing him and his wife.

2012

Ahmad Jabari, head of Hamas’ armed wing, is killed when an airstrike targets his car. His death sparks an eight-day war between Hamas and Israel.

2010

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a top Hamas operative, is killed in a Dubai hotel room in an operation attributed to the Mossad spy agency but never acknowledged by Israel. Many of the 26 supposed assassins were caught on camera disguised as tourists.

2008

Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military chief, is killed when a bomb planted in his car exploded in Damascus. Mughniyeh was accused of engineering suicide bombings during Lebanon’s civil war and of planning the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. Hezbollah blamed his killing on Israel. His son Jihad Mughniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in 2015.

2004

Hamas spiritual leader Ahmed Yassin is killed in an Israeli helicopter strike while being pushed in his wheelchair. Yassin, paralyzed in a childhood accident, was among the founders of Hamas in 1987. His successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, is killed in an Israeli airstrike less than a month later.

2002

Hamas’s second-in-command military leader Salah Shehadeh is killed by a one-ton bomb dropped on an apartment building in Gaza City.

1997

Mossad agents try to kill then-Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal in Amman, Jordan. Two agents entered Jordan using fake Canadian passports and poisoned Mashaal by placing a device near his ear. They were captured shortly afterward. Jordan’s then-King Hussein threatened to void a still-fresh peace accord if Mashaal died. Israel ultimately dispatched an antidote, and the Israeli agents were returned home. Mashaal remains a senior figure in Hamas.

1996

Yahya Ayyash, nicknamed the “engineer” for his mastery in building bombs for Hamas, is killed by answering a rigged phone in Gaza. His assassination triggered a series of deadly bus bombings in Israel.

1995

Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shikaki is shot in the head in Malta in an assassination widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

1988

Palestine Liberation Organization military chief Khalil al-Wazir is killed in Tunisia. Better known as Abu Jihad, he had been PLO chief Yasser Arafat’s deputy. Military censors cleared an Israeli paper to reveal details of the Israeli raid for the first time in 2012.

1973

Israeli commandos shoot a number of PLO leaders in their apartments in Beirut, in a nighttime raid led by Ehud Barak, who later became Israel’s top army commander and prime minister. His team killed Kamal Adwan, who was in charge of PLO operations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank; Mohammed Youssef Najjar, a member of the PLO’s executive committee; and Kamal Nasser, a PLO spokesman and charismatic writer and poet. The operation was part of a string of Israeli assassinations of Palestinian leaders in retaliation for the killings of 11 Israeli coaches and athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.