The killing of two of Israel’s top enemies within hours of each other has drastically raised tensions in the region, prompting concerns of a regional escalation.
Fuad Shukr, the top military leader in Hezbollah, was killed in an airstrike on a building in Beirut’s Hezbollah-dominated southern suburbs on the evening of July 30. The Israel Defense Force (IDF) confirmed his death and took responsibility for the hit.
Hamas’s leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed early the next day. He was in Iran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president, and the house where he was staying was hit from the air, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said. A bodyguard also was killed.
Israel hasn’t claimed credit a role in that attack and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government said it won’t comment.
Tensions in the fraught region rose even higher over the weekend. A Hezbollah missile struck a soccer field in a Druze village in the Golan Heights on July 27, killing 12 children and teens, while wounding more than 40 others.
Israel conducted more typical retaliatory air strikes on Hezbollah targets over the weekend, as Netanyahu returned from the United States after speaking to Congress and meeting with President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Donald Trump.
Late on July 28, his cabinet authorized him and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to decide on Israel’s manner of retaliation and its timing.
Hamas and Hezbollah are both client groups of Iran, which has substantially armed and trained both. Hezbollah, a Shia Muslim group aligned religiously with Iran’s theocracy, controls southern Lebanon and is regarded as stronger militarily than the nation’s army.
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei vowed revenge against Israel, saying it was “Tehran’s duty.”
Hamas is expected to name Khaled Meshaal, 68, who has been the leader of the group in exile before, to replace Haniyeh. Israel failed to assassinate him in 1997.
There’s “no signs that an escalation is imminent” in the aftermath of Haniyeh’s death, John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, said. However, he said the Biden administration is concerned about an escalation.
The IDF’s chief of staff suggested that Israel isn’t done responding yet. More than 80,000 Israelis have been forced from their homes under the heat of Hezbollah’s rocket attacks. The group has more than 100,000 missiles in its stockpile. Netanyahu’s government faces domestic pressure to neutralize Hezbollah, which is sworn to Israel’s destruction, so that those citizens can return home.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi visited IDF troops on the northern front with Lebanon on July 31.
“Our intention with Hezbollah is not to return to October 6th,” Halevi told the troops.
“Muhsan [Shukr] will not be there, but we will also not let the situation return to having [Hezbollah] present on the border, 200 meters from Metula, or from Shtula, or from Rosh HaNikra.”
Halevi alluded to the strike against Shukr. He hinted at retaliation against Nasrallah himself, who has lived underground for years, and he hinted at a possible ground war.
“The IDF knows how to operate and reach a certain window in a neighborhood in Beirut. It knows as well how to target a certain point underground. And we also know how to operate inside on the ground very strongly, and this week you are training for this, and this is a very important capability,” he said.
The United States has tried to prevent a wider war. It had pressed Israel not to strike Beirut or the Hezbollah stronghold outside it, Dahieh. Israel did exactly that in its killing of Shukr.
U.S. criticism of Israel on July 31 was muted. The United States had put a price of $5 million on Shukr’s head for his involvement in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. Marines.
All sides feel pressured to respond, Israel military analyst Elliot Chodoff told The Epoch Times. Iran might respond with another massive rocket attack, like that in April, or it might take its time. It could hit Israeli or Jewish targets abroad. It no longer needs to wait for a provocation, because it’s already got one, he said.
He opined that the two attacks, assuming Israel was indeed responsible for the Tehran attack, happened together out of coincidence. He thought it was unlikely that they could have been planned well in advance like that.
Israel had told Qatar—where Haniyeh lived and which has hosted and mediated talks toward a Gaza cease-fire—that it wouldn’t attack Hamas leaders there.
Haniyeh spent time in Turkey and Egypt, and Israel wanted to avoid worsening relations with either of them, Chodoff said.
Iran, on the other hand, is sworn to Israel’s destruction, so Israel may have seen it as a prime place for the strike, he said.
Among Israel’s pressures to act is the grind of the war of attrition, Chodoff said, which both Hamas and Hezbollah are pursuing against it. The war, dragging on for more than nine months, has strained Israel’s military and economy. A failure by Israel to neutralize Hezbollah means the war of attrition goes on, he said.
The terror groups face their own pressures. Both have lost much of their top leadership. The IDF said a few weeks ago that it had eliminated half of Hamas’s leaders. Its top leader still in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, is in hiding underground and only in sporadic communication with his remaining forces, Chodoff said.
Israel’s military is preparing for a multifront war should Iran’s response come that way, Eli Sperling, a Middle East specialist at the University of Georgia, told The Epoch Times. Iran might coordinate an attack with Hezbollah and with Yemen’s Houthi rebels, also Iranian clients, he said.
Chodoff said that Shukr was the last of a group who took control of Hezbollah’s operations in 2008 after a joint Israeli-U.S. attack eliminated a previous leader. Others of that group have already been eliminated.
Chodoff said it was an overstatement to hold Shukr directly responsible for the soccer field attack. Those who fired the missile were much lower down, he said. However, Shukr was much further up the chain and responsible for the missile’s acquisition.
Sperling noted that Iran’s April missile attack, retaliation for an Israeli strike against a high-ranking Iranian in Damascus, was in some ways restrained. Iran gave a clear warning it was coming. Many missiles didn’t reach Israel or strike populated areas, and the United States and Arab allies aided Israel in missile defense in an effort to avoid escalation.
This time, Sperling said, Iran might strike harder. The attack on Haniyeh—on Iranian soil, when he was a guest in the country—was much more humiliating.
Sperling said reports indicated that the missile used was apparently an advanced munition and very precise, entering a window and taking out Haniyeh and a bodyguard but not significantly damaging the building beyond that.
