Israel demonstrated its willingness to risk retaliation after the targeting within a few hours of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders abroad raised the prospect of a regional conflagration.
Bloomberg
Published1 Aug 2024, 12:57 AM IST
Strikes on Israel’s Enemies in Tehran, Beirut Raise Tensions
Israel demonstrated its willingness to risk retaliation after the targeting within a few hours of senior Hamas and Hezbollah leaders abroad raised the prospect of a regional conflagration.
Israeli officials said the killing of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr in Beirut late Tuesday was a response to a rocket attack last weekend from Lebanon that claimed the lives of a dozen children and teenagers playing football in the Golan Heights. Hezbollah confirmed his death on Wednesday. 
The Israeli government didn’t officially claim responsibility for the subsequent slaying in a Tehran guest house of Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas. But neither did it issue a denial. Privately, its officials did nothing to push back against the claim.
With the assassinations, Israel has opened the path to retribution. In Iran, where the new president’s term had only just been held, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said he had a “duty to seek vengeance” and that Israel should prepare for “severe punishment.”
“It’s part of Israel’s long-term counter-terrorism paradigm that you go after the leaders of terror organizations,” said Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a think tank focused on political reform and critic of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “There’s a broad consensus among Israelis that all those who perpetrated the Oct. 7 massacre should cease to exist.”
Netanyahu said in a televised address Wednesday that “there are challenging times ahead.”