Interesting story in Newsweek on Israel's history of eliminating foreign weapons scientists.

Technically speaking, these killings were neither strategic manhunts or targeted killings/decapitation, but rather pure assassination. Roughly speaking, strategic manhunts involve the deployment of uniformed forces with the objective of capturing/killing one individual. Targeted killings/decapitation strategies involve killing a class of individuals during a time of war, i.e. the Phoenix Program in Vietnam, Israel's targeting of Hamas cell leaders during the Second Intifada, or U.S. targeting of al-Qa'ida in Iraq/Jaish al-Mahdi leadership in Iraq or Predator strikes against al-Qa'ida/Taliban leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Conversely, although assassinations are directed at individuals, unlike strategic manhunts by definition they exclude the possibility of capture. Additionally, whereas targeted killings use overt military force, the essence of assassination is its treacherous nature, which includes the use of violent force during peacetime by covert personnel.

But still, it is an interesting article, and demonstrates: a) how little Israel's strategic situation has improved in the last 50 years; and b) that existential threats to its security existed well before the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.