On Wednesday, July 31, 2024, at 2 a.m., the leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated in Tehran, just a day after Fuad Shukr, the most powerful military commander of Hezbollah, was killed in an Israeli strike in Beirut, Lebanon.
Shukr was wanted by the U.S. for 41 years, with a $5 million 'Rewards for Justice' bounty for any information about him due to his central role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut, which killed 241 U.S. military personnel and wounded 128 others. Haniyeh also directed and celebrated the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the killing of 1,200 people and over 300 days of hostage-taking of hundreds, including Americans, by Hamas.