Assassinations often don’t work because the next guy is worse, or smarter, than the guy you killed (e.g., Musawi —> Nasrallah). But there have been times in Lebanon where the assassination of a key leader has set a sect or group back an entire generation (e.g. Bachir Gemayel, Rafik Hariri).

Hariri? That was a huge setback for the Syrians & hizbullah even though hizbullah proved resilient enough to bounce back

Those are good points. I’m sure someone could give a more nuanced answer but Yitzhak Rabin’s death arguably was a similar setback for the Israeli Left