“If you let my daughter go now, that’ll be the end of it… But if you don’t, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”Liam Neeson said it in Taken. Benjamin Netanyahu turned it into policy.On October 26, 2023 — 19 days after the Hamas-led massacre on Israeli soil left over 1,200 dead and hundreds taken hostage — Israel’s Prime Minister declared, “All Hamas members are dead men walking — above and below ground, inside and outside Gaza.” It sounded like war rhetoric. It turned out to be a declaration of intent. Over the next 18 months, that promise morphed into one of the most relentless, far-reaching, and unapologetic assassination campaigns ever carried out by a democratic state.This was not merely a campaign of retribution. It was a strategic decapitation effort — targeting not just the foot soldiers of Hamas, but its political leadership, military command, and regional support infrastructure across multiple countries.
One by One: The Dead Men Who Walked
- Yahya Sinwar – The chief architect of the October 7 attacks. Eliminated in Rafah by Israeli forces in late 2024. His death, though not immediately confirmed, was later acknowledged as a major turning point in the Gaza campaign.
Mohammed Sinwar – Yahya’s younger brother and interim Hamas Gaza commander, killed in a May 2025 airstrike on a tunnel complex beneath the European Hospital in Khan Younis.Mohammed Deif – The elusive, wheelchair-bound military head of Hamas’s Qassam Brigades. Killed in Khan Younis in July 2024 after decades of surviving Israeli assassination attempts. His death was described by Israeli officials as a “strategic milestone.”- Ismail Haniyeh – The political head of Hamas, assassinated in Tehran on July 31, 2024, during Iran’s presidential inauguration. A guided projectile struck his residence, killing him and his bodyguards. Iran was left red-faced; Hamas was left rudderless abroad.
- Fuad Shukr – Hezbollah’s seniormost military strategist and weapons procurement expert, eliminated in a Beirut strike days after a rocket attack from Lebanon killed 12 Israeli children.
- Saleh al-Arouri – A senior Hamas political leader based in Lebanon, targeted and killed in a drone strike on a Hamas office in Beirut.
Marwan Issa – Deif’s deputy and key tunnel warfare commander, killed in an Israeli airstrike on a central Gaza tunnel complex.- Razi Mousavi – Senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) official, killed in an Israeli strike on his Damascus residence.
- Mohammad Reza Zahedi – IRGC Quds Force commander in Lebanon and Syria, killed in an Israeli airstrike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
- Ibrahim Biari – Hamas commander in Jabalia, killed in an airstrike that flattened a Hamas tunnel system but also caused heavy civilian casualties.
Other unnamed aides and brigade leaders – Including Mohammed Shabanah, Hamas’s Rafah Brigade commander, believed to have died alongside Mohammed Sinwar.
A War Fought on Netanyahu’s Terms
This list is not incidental. It is the product of a doctrine — one that Netanyahu articulated in late 2023 and has enforced ever since, with increasing boldness, geographical reach, and political defiance.In Gaza, Israel’s campaign was brutal, with tunnel networks systematically targeted, senior commanders hunted down, and drone intelligence deployed to track movements in real time. But the strategy did not end at Gaza’s borders.Tehran, Beirut, Damascus — all became theatres of Israeli action. Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah no longer offered its proxies safe haven. Israeli strikes now carry messages: we know where you are, and we no longer care where you are.From a hospital tunnel to a diplomatic residence, Netanyahu’s campaign has made it clear — there are no sanctuaries anymore.
Biden Was President, Then Trump Returned. Netanyahu Waited for Neither.
In the early months of the war, Joe Biden was still president. His administration, despite vocal support for Israel in the immediate aftermath of October 7, grew increasingly cautious as civilian casualties mounted. It paused weapons shipments, urged restraint in Rafah, and sought a diplomatic off-ramp.Netanyahu did not listen.Israeli strikes continued — some timed conspicuously during US-led ceasefire negotiations. The Tehran hit on Haniyeh occurred just as Washington was trying to open backchannels with Iran. The Beirut operation against Fuad Shukr took place even as the US was attempting to contain Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s message was clear: Israel’s security calculus would not be subcontracted to Washington’s diplomatic calendar.Then came November 2024. Donald Trump returned to the White House.With Trump back in office, the temperature in Washington changed — but not the trajectory in Jerusalem. Netanyahu did not pivot. He accelerated.While Trump publicly cheered Israeli strength and made little effort to restrain Netanyahu’s military moves, Israeli operations remained distinctly independent. The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran — timed for maximum humiliation of the Iranian regime — reportedly took even the Trump administration by surprise. This was no alliance at work. This was Israel acting unilaterally under the cover of indifference from an ideologically aligned US president.
The Doctrine of Wrath, Updated
This is not Israel’s first campaign of targeted assassinations. After the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, Mossad launched Operation Wrath of God — a covert operation to hunt down the perpetrators across Europe. But Netanyahu’s war is different.This is Wrath of Government.No longer covert, no longer apologetic, no longer concerned with diplomatic decorum. This is a state acting with sovereign clarity — to destroy not just Hamas’s capacity for terror, but its mythology of resistance.No martyrdom. No survival stories. Just the elimination of command structures, political leadership, and ideological symbols.The war is no longer about territory. It is about memory and deterrence. A simple message: those responsible for October 7 will not live to tell the tale.
What Remains
Inside Gaza, Hamas is decapitated. Its political coherence is shattered, its military wing disoriented. Whatever leadership remains now operates in fragments, dispersed between tunnels, safehouses, and uncertainty. Its capacity to govern has evaporated, and its ability to command a coordinated military response is broken.In Lebanon, Hezbollah is already engaged in sustained cross-border conflict with Israel. Since the days following October 7, Hezbollah has launched repeated rocket and drone attacks into northern Israel, prompting Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire in return. While this ongoing exchange has led to the deaths of dozens of fighters and civilians on both sides — and displaced tens of thousands — it has not yet escalated into the kind of full-scale war seen in 2006. But the nature of Israel’s targeted assassinations, including the killing of senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, suggests that the same doctrine applied in Gaza now extends to Lebanon as well. Hezbollah may continue its calibrated attacks, but it does so knowing that retaliation could invite direct, devastating escalation — and that even its senior leadership is no longer untouchable.In Iran, the embarrassment lingers. Israeli strikes have pierced not only Iranian territory but the illusion of security long maintained by its proxy architecture. Tehran has watched its most senior commanders die without even the benefit of plausible deniability.And in Washington, the split endures. Even under Trump, who praises Israel’s strength, the sheer scale and independence of the Israeli campaign has made one thing clear: Netanyahu is not operating under American direction. He is operating to fulfill a promise made to his people.A promise that all those responsible for October 7 would die — no matter where they were, no matter who shielded them, no matter how long it took.Netanyahu’s vow — that all Hamas members were “dead men walking” — no longer sounds like rhetoric from a shaken nation. It sounds like a doctrine. And from Khan Younis to Tehran, from Beirut to Damascus, the results are visible.The world may debate the morality. It may question the proportionality. But the strategy is no longer in doubt.Those who planned October 7 are not fleeing. They are falling. One name at a time.
