The overnight assassinations of the top leaders of the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups, in Iran and Lebanon respectively, drastically shifted the already fraught state of affairs in the Middle East. Israel claimed responsibility for the killing of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr in Beirut, and Iran blamed Israel for the explosion in Tehran that killed Ismail Haniyeh, the top political leader of Hamas.
The dual assassinations threaten to derail the fragile peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas to end the war triggered by the terrorist group’s massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians in October last year.
Attention is now on what Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran will do in response, and whether the tit-for-tat from Israel would result in a broader multi-national war in the region. The last time Iran retaliated against Israel in April, its military launched an unprecedented barrage of cruise and ballistic missiles. Most of the projectiles were intercepted.