In response to Israel’s killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr earlier this week, Iran and regional armed groups aligned with the country are preparing to respond. Analysts told Al Jazeera that Iran and its allies will attempt to restore deterrence against Israel without provoking a full-blown regional war.
However, they warned that the space for miscalculation is razor-thin. “Iran and its allies will seek to restore deterrence against Israel without provoking a full-blown regional war.” Hamidreza Azizi, an expert on Iran and a non-resident fellow with the Middle East Council on Global Affairs think tank in Doha, Qatar, said, “One of the lines of argument in Iran right now is that they need to show a firm response and show their readiness to enter into a war in order to de-escalate.”
He added, “[Iran’s leaders] think] that if they don’t do that, Israel won’t stop, and after some time, there might be Iranian officials in the country being openly targeted by Israel.” After Haniyeh was killed on July 30 in Tehran while attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that it was his country’s “duty” to avenge him. The attack has not been attributed to Israel.
Iran asserts that Israel is responsible for the murder. Israel did claim responsibility for firing a missile at a residential building in Dahiya, a bustling neighborhood in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, just hours before Haniyeh’s death. In response to a projectile that killed 12 Druze children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, the attack killed Shukr, a woman, and two children. Hezbollah, an armed group from Lebanon, denied being responsible for that incident. Following the attack in Beirut, the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, stated that a response is “inevitable.”
“I think the generally speaking key standpoint continues as before as in Hezbollah would rather not raise this into a monstrous conflict,” said Nicholas Blanford, a specialist on Hezbollah with the Atlantic Chamber, a research organization in Washington, DC. “I figure they will go for a high-profile military objective.”
Clash of stories According to an investigation conducted by the New York Times, an Israeli bomb planted approximately two months prior to Haniyeh’s visit caused his death. “Israel’s allies may push the narrative that the killing was a clandestine assassination, which Israel has carried out in the past against Iranian officials overseeing the country’s nuclear program,” says senior fellow Negar Mortazavi, an expert on Iran. Mortazavi stated to Al Jazeera that “both sides have an interest in pushing a narrative.”
“Israel wants to say that this is just part of the ‘shadow war,’” a term used to refer to prior clandestine operations, “the Iranians want to push this as an attack on their sovereignty.”
Mortazavi also stated that she thinks Israel is trying to get Iran to launch a major attack, which would force the US, which has indicated that it does not want to get involved in a regional war, to join Israel. She was referring to Israel’s April attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of seven people, including two Iranian generals.
According to the New York Times, US officials claimed that Israel “miscalculated” by striking the embassy because they did not anticipate Iran’s response to be as forceful. Iran responded on April 13 by attacking Israel with a barrage of missiles and drones, claiming it had given the United States and its allies ample warning.
Mortazavi provided an explanation for Israel’s decision not to escalate further in response to Iran’s missile and drone attack, stating, “The US basically made it clear to Israel that they will be there to defend them but not go on the offensive with them” in April. The expert on Iran, Azizi, said that Iran thought the attack on the embassy was an “Israeli miscalculation,” but Haniyeh’s death was seen as a direct provocation. According to what he told Al Jazeera, “Based on what I can see, this time Iran might not actually give an exact prior warning to the US and US allies in the region [about its next attack on Israel].”
“Iran considers the past organization to be not attempting to stop Israel.” Greater stakes A few experts caution that a significant assault by the “pivot of-opposition” gambles with killing Israeli military faculty or regular people, subsequently raising the phantom of a significant provincial struggle. “There is most certainly a more extensive room for error when Hezbollah needs to answer past the safe place of the beyond 10 months, since, in such a case that Hezbollah picks to strike profound into Israeli domain then it involves a high gamble of setbacks,” he said.
Hage Ali likewise contends that Israel’s lopsided reaction to prior Hezbollah assaults has carried the locale nearer to war. According to Hage Ali, the Israelis retaliated by firing deeply into Lebanese territory, beginning the current escalation of violence. Azizi admits that the stakes are much higher now. According to him, Iran has been openly discussing the possibility of coordinating a response with its regional allies ever since Haniyeh’s death, giving up any possibility of deniability in the event that Hezbollah or another member of the axis of resistance kills Israelis in an attack. Hage Ali stated, “That would then lead to a stronger Israeli response, which would then lead to more tit-for-tat [attacks] leading to war.”
