Israel’s killing of Haniyeh deals hammer to ceasefire

[Pelican Press 0]

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*******’s ******** of Haniyeh deals hammer to ceasefire

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==West Asia News Agency via Reuters

******’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was ******* shortly after attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president

******* has inflicted two devastating blows on its enemies.

It has not confirmed that it

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in Tehran, but it is hard to see who else would have wanted him ***** more than the Israelis. As for the Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr,

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in Beirut in an “intelligence-based elimination”.

For *******, everyone senior in ****** is a legitimate target after the attacks of 7 October 2023, which inflicted the worst single day of bloodshed on ******* since independence in 1948.

Fuad Shukr, ******* says, was ******* because as a veteran Hezbollah commander he was responsible for the rocket ******* that ******* 12 children and young people in the ********-occupied Golan Heights.

Hezbollah has confirmed he was ******* in the raid on Beirut. It denies carrying out the ******* in the Golan.

Once again, the Middle East is full of speculation that the all-out war feared since 7 October is imminent. The deadly irony is no side wants that war, but increasingly they are prepared to risk it.

The Israelis have been under pressure from their ********* allies to calibrate their response to Hezbollah, inflicting a ***** that will hurt the group without provoking a devastating retaliation and igniting a wider and deeper war.

But two assassinations amount to a major gamble.

*******, under pressure from its allies in Washington, wanted to inflict a ***** on Hezbollah that would not extract a devastating retaliation. The leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, might still decide that an ******* on their stronghold in southern Beirut warrants a matching ******* on Tel Aviv.

******* might also have calculated that Iran would not go to war over an assassinated ************ leader, even though his ****** in their capital, under their protection, is a humiliation.

******** Haniyeh, just after he had met the new Iranian president, is a dramatic display of *******’s reach.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==Hezbollah

Hezbollah posted this image on Telegram on Wednesday confirming the ****** of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr

The Islamic Republic thought it re-established deterrence when it fired hundreds of missiles and drones at ******* in April – that claim has now been exposed as hollow. April’s barrage was also retaliation, for the ******** air strike that ******* two Iranian generals in Iran’s embassy in Damascus.

More retaliation looks certain from Iran, its ally Hezbollah or one of its proxies. Pro-Iranian militias in Iraq have made it clear that they blame the US equally for what has happened. In the Red Sea, the Houthis might redouble their attacks out of Yemen.

There are limits to what ****** can do, after months of the ******** onslaught in Gaza. But the Israelis are on high alert for attacks in the occupied West Bank or inside ******* itself.

It is important to realise that the Middle East is already in a regional war, but also to recognise that it could get much worse.

Even so, this round of ******** and retaliation might not be the spark that ignites all-out war, though it is easy to construct scenarios based on the clear and dangerous risks and realities in the world’s most turbulent region.

Pulling back from the brink, repeatedly, is not making war any less likely. It makes it ******* to construct a diplomatic pathway away from the looming threat of all-out conflict.

The only credible first step for lowering the deadly temperature in the Middle East is a ceasefire in Gaza.

data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///ywAAAAAAQABAAACAUwAOw==NurPhoto via Getty Images

Ismael Haniyeh was an important interlocutor in negotiations over a ceasefire in Gaza

In recent weeks the Americans have said that it was getting closer. That was always hard to imagine while the two sides’ definitions of an acceptable ceasefire were so far apart. For ******, a ceasefire meant an ******** withdrawal and the end of hostilities. For *******, it meant a pause that allowed for the release of some or all of the surviving hostages, and the right to resume the war afterwards.

Now a ceasefire in Gaza looks as far away as ever, although the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said again that it ******** America’s diplomatic priority.

Ismail Haniyeh was a leading figure on the ****** side in the ceasefire talks. With his colleagues, he communicated with the US and ******* via the head of the Egyptian secret service and the prime minister of Qatar, Sheikh Mohamed bin Jassim al Thani.

The prime minister posted his response to the ************** of Haniyeh on X, writing: “Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask how mediation can succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side.”

The ************** fits more closely into ******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conception of “total victory” over ****** than into the ********* idea that a ceasefire is vital to avoid an even deeper regional catastrophe.

It will also strengthen the belief held by Mr Netanyahu’s critics inside and outside ******* that he wants to prolong the war, to avoid the moment when he faces a reckoning of the mistakes he made that allowed ****** the space to ******* with such devastating consequences on 7 October.

The Americans and French have also worked hard to find a diplomatic way to stop the border war between ******* and Hezbollah. But the vital first step would be a ceasefire in Gaza, and the prospect one was close has taken another hammer *****.

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#Israels #******** #Haniyeh #deals #hammer #ceasefire

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