By assassinating Hamas’s top political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukur, within hours of each other this week, Israel has, in an unprecedented way, raised the spectre of a regional war.
Once again, Israel has boldly challenged its arch-enemies, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon, to retaliate. The risk of a regional hell breaking loose involving the great powers has never been greater.
Hezbollah leader Fuad Shukr and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
The killing of Haniyeh and Shukur serves several of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s goals: It is in line with his aim to hunt down Hamas leaders wherever they are, to cripple Hezbollah as a threat to Israel, and to send a strong signal to Tehran’s leaders that he can reach anywhere and everywhere in Iran.
For months, Netanyahu has viewed a war with Iran as a powerful means of camouflaging his failure to eradicate Hamas (whose military leader, Yahya Sinwar, remains in charge of the resistance) and secure the release of Israeli hostages ten months after his military launched scorched-earth operations in Gaza. Such a war, he believes, would also divert widespread opposition at home and abroad. Moreover, Netanyahu has sought to force the United States – Israel’s main guarantor of security – to become instrumental in a war that Israel cannot win on its own.
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