The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh has the entire Middle East on an absolute knife’s edge.
The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh has the entire Middle East on an absolute knife’s edge.
When we wrapped up our ABC News coverage on Tuesday night, Israel had just announced they had killed a senior Hezbollah leader in Beirut, their targeted response to the Golan Heights rocket attack.
The question was when and how Hezbollah would respond, but the overriding sense was that both sides were likely to find a way not to escalate to all-out war.
That’s now been completely upended.
An attack in Tehran, the heart of Iran, killed the political leader of Hamas not long after he attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president at the invitation of the country’s supreme leader. Haniyeh was in their care. This is a huge deal.
Israel hasn’t taken direct responsibility, but Iran’s supreme leader has said the attack came from the “criminal and terrorist Zionist entity.”
“With this act, [Israel] paved the way for a severe punishment, and we consider it our duty to avenge the blood of those who were martyred in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Ayatollah Khamenei.
