Dubai: Israel was on heightened alert on Thursday for potential retaliatory attacks following threats from Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran, in response to two assassinations that have reverberated across the region.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who led prayers in Tehran for Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, has ordered a direct attack against Israel, media quoted Iranian officials as saying.
Thousands have turned out for the funeral procession of Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran on Wednesday.
Haniyeh killed by bomb?
Amid questions about how Israel managed to hit Haniyeh in Tehran, the New York Times reported that he was killed by a bomb smuggled two months earlier into the guesthouse where he was staying.
It cited seven officials, including two Iranians, and an American official.
The report noted that the guesthouse is used for retreats, secret meetings, and “housing prominent guests” such as Haniyeh.
The officials cited by the Times noted that while the explosion shattered windows and collapsed a portion of the wall of the compound, there was minimal damage to the building itself, indicating that it was unlikely to have been a missile strike.
‘Day of furious rage’
Hamas has called for a “day of furious rage” on Friday, coinciding with the burial of Haniyeh in Qatar.
Israel’s army, meanwhile, confirmed that Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif was killed in an air strike last month in the southern Gaza Strip.
“Mohammed Deif, the Osama bin Laden of Gaza was eliminated” on July 13, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Wednesday evening that “challenging days are ahead” for Israel.
Speaking from military headquarters in Tel Aviv at the end of a three-hour-long security cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said Israel was facing threats from across the region following the killing of Fuad Shukr, whom he called “Hezbollah’s chief of staff,” in Beirut on Tuesday night.
“We are ready for every scenario,” he promised, “and will stand united and determined against every threat.” He added: “Israel will exact a very heavy price for any aggression against us.”
‘Red lines crossed’
At the funeral of Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, the militant group’s chief Hassan Nasrallah warned that they are bound to respond to Israel’s killing, saying his death and that of the Hamas leader “crossed” red lines.
“The enemy, and those who are behind the enemy, must await our inevitable response,” he said in a speech broadcast at the funeral of Shukr.
“You do not know what red lines you crossed,” he said, addressing Israel after separate strikes in Beirut and Tehran killed Shukr and Haniyeh within 24 hours.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s killing, but it announced that it had “eliminated” Shukr, describing him as Hezbollah’s “most senior military commander” and Nasrallah’s “right-hand man”.
Shukr, who used the nom de guerre Hajj Mohsen, led operations in south Lebanon, where the group says it has opened a “support front”, exchanging near-daily fire with Israel since war erupted in Gaza in October.
“We, on all the support fronts, have entered a new phase,” Nasrallah said, referring to Hezbollah and other Iran-backed groups that have targeted Israel in support of Hamas after the Palestinian group launched an October 7 attack on Israel, triggering the war.
Two scenarios of coordinated retaliation
Iran and its regional proxies are preparing coordinated retaliation for the deaths meant to deter Israel but avert all-out war, according to sources and analysts cited by AFP.
A source close to Hezbollah says Iranian officials met in Tehran with representatives of the so-called “axis of resistance” to discuss their response to the assassinationsk.
“Two scenarios were discussed: a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party,” the source who had been briefed on the meeting tells AFP, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
“There is a very strong likelihood that the response will be coordinated… among other resistance actors,” says Amal Saad, a Hezbollah researcher and lecturer at Britain’s Cardiff University.
“It’s going to greatly deepen the tactical coordination between Iran” and the terror groups it supports across the region, she says, naming Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian terror groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi force.
A leader of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq, a loose alliance of pro-Iran groups, tells AFP that “Iran will lead the first response with the participation of Iraqi, Yemeni and Syrian factions, striking military targets, followed by a second response from Hezbollah.”
US trying to calm situation
With mounting tensions, the US, a key Israeli ally, is striving to prevent the situation escalating into a full-blown war across the Middle East. The Biden administration used intermediaries to send warnings to Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis of Yemen not to escalate, according to people familiar with US policy, Bloomberg news agency reported.
The US also counselled Israel on the need for caution in its next steps, the people said.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed other world leaders in warning of the heightened risk to the region of the developing hostilities, which began in October with the invasion of Israel by Hamas militants that triggered the ongoing and brutal 10-month war in Gaza.
“Right now, the path that the region is on is toward more conflict,” Blinken said in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. “It’s urgent that all parties make the right choices in the days ahead because those choices are the difference between staying on this path of violence, of insecurity, of suffering, or moving to something very different and much better.”
