The assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr in Beirut have sent shockwaves across the Middle East, and raised the perception that the Iranians are likely to respond with an attack on Israel, potentially triggering an all-out regional war.
Israel is widely believed to have killed Haniyeh and has claimed responsibility for Shukr. After months of devastating attacks on Gaza, in which nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed, and after previous escalations against Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon, there is concern about what comes next, with fears that Lebanon in particular could come under attack in the event of a prolonged conflict.
It has now been almost a week since Haniyeh and Shukr were killed, but no major attacks on Israel have yet been carried out, with diplomats moving around the region in an attempt to prevent any escalation.
The Iranians have insisted they will retaliate, with Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani saying on Monday that regional stability could only come from “punishing the aggressor and creating a deterrent against the adventurism of the Zionist regime (Israel).”
The question now is what form that response will take. Will it be a measured effort, calculated to avoid a regional war—much like the last time Iran felt the need to respond to an Israeli attack in April? Or will Iranian leaders decide that the latest attacks require a more forceful response, even if it risks a broader conflict?
Bring the area to a boil
Haniyeh’s assassination brought tensions to their highest point since last October, when a Hamas-led attack killed 1,139 people and captured more than 200 in Israel. Israel responded with a devastating war on Gaza that has destroyed the enclave, displaced millions and killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians.
Less than 24 hours before Haniyeh’s assassination, Israel killed Fuad Shukr, a founding member of Hezbollah’s military wing, and at least five civilians in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israel blamed Shukr for an attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 Druze children and youth. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack.
Israel has killed at least 39 commanders or senior members of the “axis of resistance” – the pro-Iranian network opposed to US and Israeli hegemony in the region – since October 7, according to the monitoring group ACLED.
“Eliminating the commanders and senior leaders of the resistance axis is unlikely to be a decisive factor in ending the current conflicts along Israel’s southern and northern borders or pose an existential threat to Israel’s adversaries,” Ameneh Mehvar, a regional Middle East specialist at ACLED, wrote in a report. “With a ceasefire agreement that could secure the release of Israeli hostages now even more distant, the current assassinations have brought the region even closer to the brink of a war that could have devastating consequences for the Middle East and beyond.”
Although Israel has not officially commented on Haniyeh’s assassination, the day after the killing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a speech acknowledging the likelihood of an Iranian response.
“We are prepared to face any scenario and we will remain united and resolute in the face of any threat,” Netanyahu said in a televised speech Wednesday night. “Israel will exact a very high price for any aggression against us, whatever the reason.”
Regarding the attack in the Beirut suburbs, Netanyahu said: “We have settled the bill with Mohsen (Shukr’s pseudonym) and we will settle the bill with whoever harms us. Whoever kills our children, whoever murders our citizens, whoever harms our country, will pay the price.”
An opportunity for Iran to show itself to be rational
The Iranian response is imminent, analysts say, but it will likely be measured. While Haniyeh’s assassination on Iranian soil, and in the country’s capital at that, is a major insult to the Iranian government, experts say it does not change Iran’s desire to avoid a broader regional war with Israel and its main backer, the United States.
“I don’t think escalation is on the minds of Iranian decision-makers,” Reza Akbari, Middle East and North Africa program director at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, told Tel Aviv Tribune. “That said, of course, Iranian decision-makers are not united.”
Iranian politics has long been divided between hardliners and reformists. The country’s new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, widely described as a centrist or reformist, has only been in office for a few weeks. When Iran attacked Israel in April, his predecessor, hardliner Ibrahim Raisi, had not yet died in a helicopter crash. Pezeshkian has appointed ministers and intermediaries with experience negotiating on the international stage, including some who helped sign the JCPOA, the deal that put limits on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief—and from which the United States unilaterally withdrew in 2018.
“The game that the Iranians are trying to figure out is how to retaliate and send a signal that aggressive acts such as assassinations cannot take place on Iranian soil without triggering a cycle of escalation,” Akbari continued. “That’s the million-dollar question, if you will.”
While Iranian leaders have promised “harsh revenge,” their continued diplomatic engagement with proxies has reassured some analysts that the appetite for a broader war is still low. Tehran recently hosted Jordan’s foreign minister.
“My impression is that Iran is talking to everyone in the Middle East except Israel, and a number of countries outside the region,” Ori Goldberg, a Tel Aviv-based political analyst, told Tel Aviv Tribune. “The more evidence of coordination we have, and the longer it takes Iran to respond, the more likely it is that Iran’s response will be controlled and contained.”
He added that Iran, a country considered a pariah by the United States, has an opportunity to show itself as a rational actor to international stakeholders, especially at a time when Netanyahu has eroded relations with his staunch international partners.
“Netanyahu wants war with Iran”
“Israel fails to understand how much its international stature has diminished in the last 10 months,” Goldberg said. “It continues to be supported (but) it is increasingly becoming a liability to the United States.”
The United States has supported Israel materially and militarily throughout the war on Gaza, but it has also urged its main regional ally not to take rash steps that could escalate tensions with Iran and its allies. But Israel responded by killing Haniyeh, the man with whom it was negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza.
Internally, Netanyahu has been operating on borrowed time for months. In May, a poll found that only 32% of Israelis approved of his job performance. He has also been charged with fraud, bribery and breach of trust in three cases filed in 2019, but the trial was interrupted by the war in Gaza. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is also seeking an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for alleged war crimes.
A ceasefire in Gaza would help ease tensions between Israel and its regional adversaries. Regional powers are now waiting to see how Haniyeh’s assassination will affect those negotiations.
For Netanyahu, analysts have been saying for months that an end to the fighting could end his career because it could trigger early elections. Netanyahu has also talked for years about an Iranian threat and pushed the United States to confront it. Now he may seize his chance.
“The general consensus in Israel is that Netanyahu wants a war with Iran and he is working toward it,” Goldberg said. “Does the Israeli public want that? No. Israelis are exhausted, but there is no other vision or alternative plan proposed by the opposition.”
Hezbollah and the Axis
Beyond Iran, Israel must still consider the response of Iran’s allies, particularly to Shukr’s assassination.
Israel has “crossed red lines” and a response is “inevitable,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday.
The question then is whether Iran’s response will include coordination with its “axis of resistance” allies, particularly Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, or whether each group will act on its own.
Imad Salamey, a political scientist at the Lebanese American University, said Hezbollah and Iran would likely be in close contact regarding their response, although any attack would be strategic and aimed at avoiding adding fuel to the fire.
“Although Hezbollah is expected to coordinate with Iran, the overall strategy will likely focus on a protracted, controlled conflict that serves multiple strategic interests for Iran without escalating into a full-scale regional war,” he said.
For now, if Iran can strike the right balance in its response, open war in the region could be avoided, analysts say. Instead, low tension could persist, with Iran engaging primarily through its regional allies in the “axis of resistance,” Salamey said.
“This coordination aims to show the existence of a generalized front against Israel,” he said. “However, Iran’s strategic calculations indicate that the response should avoid triggering an open war in the region. Iran prefers to avoid turning the conflict between Gaza and Israel into a direct war between Iran and Israel.”
