A pair of assassinations of anti-Israel militant leaders hours apart is threatening to set off a regional clash and upend already fragile talks aimed at ending the war in Gaza.
The deadly round of strikes, retaliation and negotiations escalated Wednesday when Hamas’ political chief, Ismail Haniyeh was killed hours after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but Iran claims the United States had a role, and threatened revenge against Israel.
It was the second assassination in less than 24 hours to be blamed on Israel. On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had killed Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in an airstrike in a Beirut suburb. The killing followed the rocket attack Saturday on the town of Majdal Shams that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Iran-backed Hezbollah denied it was behind the Majdal Shams attack.
With governments and diplomats around the world trying to prevent Mideast tensions from boiling over, the United Nations Security Council held an emergency meeting late Wednesday, but issued no collective message afterward.
Here’s what to know about the intensifying conflict.
A funeral, blame, and an appeal for calm
Iran’s supreme leader and representatives of Palestinian militias that he backs prayed Thursday over the coffins of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard, who were killed in the shocking assassination.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed over Haniyeh’s coffin at Tehran University while Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian stood next to him. State television later showed the coffins placed in a truck and moved on the street toward Azadi Square in Tehran, with people throwing flowers at them. Haniyeh’s remains were to be transferred to Qatar for burial Friday.
Iran supports Hamas, as well as Hezbollah and other Palestinian militant groups fighting Israel in Gaza. In his speech at Haniyeh’s funeral ceremony in Tehran, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said that such attacks are carried out under the United States’ guidance and coordination, “and nothing happens without the coordination and support of criminal America.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said “all parties” in the Middle East must avoid escalatory actions that could plunge the region into further conflict.
Speaking in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar on Thursday, Blinken appealed for countries to “make the right choices in the days ahead” and said a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza was the only way to begin to break the current cycle of violence and suffering. Blinken did not mention Israel, Iran or Hamas by name in his comments.
Israel is under fire on multiple fronts
Israel uses targeted killings and the perception of overwhelming force in Gaza to communicate with the region’s other players — Iran among them — about the consequences of aggression against Israel. Now, Israel faces the threat of retaliation from multiple fronts.
In this cycle, the rocket attack on Majdal Shams begat the assassination of Shukur and the killing of Haniyeh. Israel’s 10-month war against Hamas in Gaza has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians in the seaside enclave, according to Gaza Health Ministry numbers. Israel says the war is its response to the Oct. 7 attack in which Hamas militants killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 more hostage. Israel has vowed to kill Hamas’ leaders in response to Oct. 7.
Against that backdrop, Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon have exchanged near-daily strikes. But previously, they kept the conflict at a deadly but relatively low level that has not escalated to full-scale war.
The assassinations of Shukur and Haniyeh could change those calculations. Iran has also threatened to respond after the attack on its territory.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a letter to dozens of foreign ministries around the world that “Israel is not interested in an all-out war.” He urged a full cessation of hostilities along the Israel-Lebanon border.
But he added a warning: “We will harm with great force whoever harms us.”
Gaza cease-fire talks in question
Concern about the cease-fire talks have soared in the wake of Haniyeh’s killing.
Before the strikes, there were some hopes that Israel and Hamas might have been nearing an agreement to pause the war. The negotiations were mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States. Haniyeh was among the negotiators.
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, told journalists in Iran that whoever replaces Haniyeh will “follow the same vision” regarding negotiations to end the war — and continue in the same policy of resistance against Israel.
America’s Blinken has urged the prime minister of Qatar, a key mediator in cease-fire talks, to continue working toward an agreement that would “secure the release of hostages, alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people and unlock the possibility of broader stability,” the State Department said. Hamas’ top political officials were based in Qatar.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani asked on social media: “Can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life.”
The US and Israel are on divergent paths
The killings suggest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is more openly at odds with the Biden administration’s attempts to calm the tensions in the region.
Blinken said Americans weren’t aware of or involved in the Haniyeh attack. A cease-fire, he said, remained “the best way to bring the temperature down everywhere.”
But the Tehran strike may have all but destroyed those U.S. hopes for the time being.
“I just don’t see how a cease-fire is feasible right now with the assassination of the person you would have been negotiating with,” said Vali Nasr, a former U.S. diplomat now at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies.
If cycles of retaliation and counter-retaliation unspool as expected and feared, Haniyeh’s killing could thwart the administration’s hopes of restraining any Israeli inflammatory actions.
As the U.S. political campaign enters its final months, it’ll be harder for the Biden administration to break away — should it want to — from an ally with whom it has historical, security, economic and political ties.
A long history of targeted killings
The pair of killings this week are the latest in decades of targeted strikes to be blamed on Israel, with several allegedly this year alone.
Weeks ago, Israel targeted Hamas’ shadowy military commander Mohammed Deif in a massive strike in the crowded southern Gaza Strip. The strike killed at least 90 people including children, according to local health officials. Israel claimed Thursday that it had confirmed Deif died in the attack.
In April, two Iranian generals were killed in what Iran said was an Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria. The deaths prompted Iran to launch an unprecedented attack against Israeli territory, launching 300 missiles and drones, most of which were intercepted.
In January, an Israeli drone strike in Beirut killed Saleh Arouri, a top Hamas official in exile, as Israeli troops battled the militant group in Gaza.
A regional war?
The complex dynamics add up to serious concerns about a regional war and which countries could get drawn in.
“We’ve now seen again that Israel can target anywhere in Iran. But this time there is a question of the safety of the Iranian senior officials,” said Nomi Bar-Yaacov, associate fellow with the international security program at Chatham House. “Israel is basically sending a message to the Iranians: ‘We can kill any one of you anywhere, anytime.’ And that is very dangerous.”
“Iran has many long arms known as proxies, but they act as sub-states in many places; in Iraq, in Syria, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Gaza, of course, in the West Bank and in east Jerusalem,” he said. “So they have got their people training, arming, planning everywhere, and they can reach anywhere in the world.
“They can also hit Israeli or Jewish targets globally. And the question really is, what’s next?”
With contributions from AP journalists around the world. Kellman reported from London.
