Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh killed: how Israel’s Mossad carries out assassinations | Explained

Moments after Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel from Gaza; the Benjamin Netanyahu government put a bounty on Ismail Haniyeh.

Two hundred ninety-seven days later, Israel achieved its stated objective.

On his visit to Tehran, where he attended the attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony, Haniyeh was killed in what appears to be a guided missile strike in the Iranian capital.

The assassination that has been blamed on Israel sent the Iranian military structure into a tizzy as it clearly failed to protect the top Hamas leader after he moved from his base in Qatar. Such failures have been rampant, and the fingers of accusations have always been pointed to Israel.

This is not the first time that Israel has reportedly carried out assassinations inside Iran. For years, both countries have been engaged in shadow wars.

Since 2009, Israel's fabled spy agency Mossad has assassinated many officials or political figures it deems as threats in Iran. From poisoning Iranian scientists to launching aerial strikes, the spy agency has hit its targets with deathly precision.

While Mossad’s operations remain covert, Al-Jazeera interviewed Israeli investigative journalist Ronen Bergman in 2018 to get a sense of how the spy agency works.

Bergman told the Qatar-based network that the task of carrying out assassinations usually rests with the Caesarea unit, which is an undercover operational branch within Mossad.

The unit was established in the early 1970s. It is in charge of planting and running spies mainly inside Arab countries and around the world.

Caesarea utilises its vast spy network in Arab states and the wider Gulf to collect information and conduct surveillance against current and future targets.

Once the targets are zeroed in, the journalist claimed that Caesarea deploys its most lethal unit, known in Hebrew as Kidon which is

made up of professional killers specialised in assassination and sabotage operations. Members of Kidon are often drawn from Israeli military branches including the army or special forces.

Israeli Journalist Ronen Bergman told Channel 12 that the assassinations carried out by Mossad take a long time to plan and they are usually done with a great effort to ensure there is no collateral damage.