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Live updates: Hamas political leader Haniyeh is killed in an alleged Israeli strike. Iran says revenge is ‘our duty’ [1]

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Date: 2024-07

Beirut and Tehran attacks could spur a different kind of escalation, analyst says

Nabih Awada, a Lebanese political analyst close to the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance” and a former fighter with the Lebanese Communist Party, said he expects both the strike in Beirut that killed a Hezbollah commander and the assassination of Hamas’ political leader could spur an “escalation that is different from what we have seen in the past.”

The strike in Beirut targeted a civilian residential area and Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur was targeted “in his home rather than in a military headquarters,” he said. “Therefore, this matter is considered a violation of all rules of engagement.”

Hezbollah, he said, “has developed many equations” including that the response to a strike in Beirut’s “southern suburbs will be in Haifa.”

As for the killing of Haniyeh, he said, “All political leaders in the Hamas movement have a military history in one way or another. However, Ismail Haniyeh was targeted first because he is a political figure par excellence and because he is the head of the political bureau of Hamas. … Therefore, this assassination is mainly a political assassination” and as such might draw a harsher response than the killing of a military commander.

Awada, who spent a decade in Israeli prisons along with some of the current Hamas leaders, said the responses would depend on the facts that emerge from the attacks.

“If the missile was launched from the area of Azerbaijan or from the area of Irbil, the response will be towards these two areas,” Awada said, but if it was launched from the sky, “we will certainly face a different confrontation.”

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[1] Url: https://apnews.com/live/hamas-haniyeh-iran-israel-live-updates#00000191-0884-d29c-a79f-ceafc4450000

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