Hamas announced on Tuesday that its leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, one of Israel’s most wanted men, had been appointed head of the movement, after the assassination of his predecessor revived fears of a military escalation in the Middle East.
Iran, Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have accused Israel of assassinating Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement, on July 31 in Tehran, and vowed to avenge him.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah promised a response against Israel, “whatever the consequences,” after this assassination and that of the military leader of the Lebanese Islamist movement, Fouad Chokr, killed on July 30 in an Israeli strike near Beirut.
Hezbollah and Iran are “obliged to retaliate,” Hassan Nasrallah said in a live speech. Hezbollah will retaliate “alone or as part of a unified response” by Iran and its allies in the region, he said.
Earlier, a low-altitude flight over Beirut by Israeli military aircraft, which broke the sound barrier, caused panic in the Lebanese capital.
A Hamas official said Tuesday that the appointment of Yahya Sinwar sent a “strong message” to Israel, ten months after the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the unprecedented attack carried out by the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil on October 7.
The Israeli army and authorities accuse Yahya Sinouar of being one of the masterminds of the attack.
Minutes after his appointment was announced, a salvo of rockets was fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, claimed by the armed wing of Hamas.
“The appointment of arch-terrorist Yahya Sinwar as head of Hamas, replacing Ismail Haniyeh, is an additional reason to eliminate him quickly and wipe this despicable organization off the map,” Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz responded on X.
Attack imminent?
Tensions across the region have redoubled following the assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh and Fuad Shokr, raising fears of a military escalation between Israel on the one hand, and Iran and allied groups in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq on the other.
Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death, but vowed after the October 7 attack to destroy Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization, along with the United States, Canada and the European Union.
The Israeli army, however, claimed responsibility for the strike that killed Fouad Shokr, who Israel said was responsible for an attack that killed 12 children and teenagers on July 27 in the Syrian Golan Heights, which Israel annexed. Hezbollah had denied any involvement.
Israel has been on alert for nearly a week, awaiting the response promised by Iran and its allies.
However, according to a European diplomat based in Tel Aviv, the absence of a change in the army’s directives to civilians means, in theory, that an attack is not so imminent.
“Possibility” of a Lebanon-Israel war
Faced with the risk of a conflagration, the international community has entered into a race against time. The United States is working “day and night” to avoid an escalation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday.
Diplomatic contacts increased again on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting scheduled for Wednesday of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).
US President Joe Biden spoke by phone with the Emir of Qatar, the main mediator in the Gaza war, about “efforts for de-escalation” […] including through an immediate ceasefire and an agreement on the release of the hostages,” according to the White House.
Joe Biden also had a telephone conversation with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
“There is the possibility of war between us and Israel. […] “We cannot deny it,” said Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib, who was in Cairo on Tuesday.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire with the Israeli army almost daily along the border separating southern Lebanon from northern Israel. In this context, several countries have called on their nationals to leave Lebanon and airlines have suspended their connections to Beirut.
On Tuesday, six Hezbollah fighters were killed in Israeli strikes on southern Lebanon, according to the Lebanese Islamist movement, which announced that it had targeted several Israeli positions.
Regional authorities in northern Israel on Tuesday urged residents to stay close to shelters after rocket fire from Hezbollah.
Seven Americans were also injured Monday in a rocket attack on a military base in Iraq, according to a U.S. official. The Pentagon blamed the attack on “Iran-aligned militias.”
Call for ‘collective action’ for Gazans
At the same time, the Israeli army continues its bombing of the besieged Gaza Strip.
An Israeli drone strike has killed one person, according to rescuers in Deir el-Balah, in the centre of the Palestinian territory.
“There needs to be stronger collective action from the world” to ensure the safety of Gazans, Hassan Morajea, regional adviser in Deir el-Balah for the NGO Norwegian Refugee Council, said on Tuesday.
The Israeli military announced Tuesday that the last person missing after the October 7 attack had died. The attack killed 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people abducted, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom are dead, according to the army.
In response, Israel launched an offensive that has so far killed 39,653 people, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilian and combatant deaths.