Word – Israel Says It Killed Muhammad Deif, Leader of Hamas’s Military Wing, Last Month: Live Updates

Israel’s Tuesday night strike on Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander in Beirut, was a response to an attack on an Israeli-controlled town on Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers. The strike on Beirut was the first time during this war that Israel has targeted such an influential Hezbollah leader in Lebanon’s capital. Hours later, the killing in Iran of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was considered the most brazen breach of Iran’s defenses in years.

Taken together, the seniority of the targets, the sensitive location of the strikes and their near simultaneity were viewed as a particularly provocative escalation that has left the region fearing an even bigger response from Iran and its regional proxies, including Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen and militias in Iraq. The scale of that reaction could determine whether the low-level regional battle between Israel and the Iranian alliance tips into a full-scale, all-out conflict.

Iranian military commanders are considering a large combination attack of drones and ballistic missiles on military targets in Israel but would avoid striking civilian targets, three Iranian officials have said.

Still, while Iran and Hezbollah are likely to respond, they may yet choose methods that give Israel room to avoid further retaliation, at least for now, some analysts said. For months, Hezbollah has appeared wary of a war that would likely devastate Lebanon, while Iran — whose leadership has already said it will respond forcefully — may want to avoid actions that draw the United States into the conflict more directly. Both parties may also decide to view each assassination as a distinct event, rather than as a combined attack that requires a massive, joint response, analysts said.

Hezbollah will face pressure to respond because the strike on Beirut hit one of its own commanders, rather than one of its allies, according to Michael Stephens, a non-resident expert on the Middle East at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a Philadelphia-based research organization. But it is by no means clear that Mr. Haniyeh’s death in Iran will change Hezbollah’s calculations in Lebanon, Mr. Stephens said.

“We need to be very clear and very careful about how we conflate the two issues,” Mr. Stephens said. “Over the past nine months, Hezbollah has repeatedly shown that what happens to Hamas is not related to Hezbollah’s strategic imperatives. That doesn’t mean there won’t be conflict. I just think the route to getting there is more complex than it seems.”

For Iran, the attack on its soil was deeply embarrassing in part because it occurred the same day as the country’s newly elected president was being inaugurated, exposing Iran’s security vulnerabilities. Still, because the attack targeted a foreign guest rather than senior Iranian officials, Iran has some room to calibrate its response, according to Andreas Krieg, an expert on the Middle East at King’s College, London.

“I don’t think necessarily that the Iranians’ strategic calculus has changed,” Mr. Krieg said.

“Iran will have to respond in some way,” he said. “But it’s not a turning point.”

Some analysts said the killing of Mr. Haniyeh, Hamas’s top negotiator, made a cease-fire deal in Gaza less likely in the immediate future. Israelis hoped that the killing of such an influential leader would eventually help break Hamas’s resolve, making the group more willing to compromise in the long term. But others said that the organization was unlikely to be seriously affected by Mr. Haniyeh’s death.

Despite his title as Hamas’s political leader, Mr. Haniyeh is replaceable, said Joost Hiltermann, the Middle East and North Africa program director for the International Crisis Group.

“Hamas will survive,” he said. “They have plenty of other leaders.”

While escalation is more likely now that at any time since October, past experiences show that de-escalation is still possible. In January, Israeli strikes killed a senior Hamas leader in Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut, leading to fears that Hezbollah would mount a particularly fierce response on Hamas’s behalf. Days later, Hezbollah instead chose what was construed as a largely symbolic response, firing a barrage of rockets at an Israeli army base that caused little damage. And after Israel killed several Iranian commanders in Syria in April, Iran responded with one of the biggest barrages of cruise and ballistic missiles in military history. After a symbolic Israeli counterstrike, the two sides then chose to step back from the brink.

But even if an escalation is averted, it is unclear what the two strikes will achieve for Israel strategically.

To some of Israel’s critics, they were an attempt to set off a regional war. To dispel that idea, Israel’s foreign minister, Israel Katz, said on Wednesday that a bigger war could still be avoided if both sides adhered to a United Nations resolution that was issued after the last major war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, but never enforced.

Resolution 1701 called for Hezbollah’s withdrawal from the Israeli border, among other stipulations. “Israel is not interested in an all-out war, but the only way to prevent it is the immediate implementation of Resolution 1701,” Mr. Katz said in a statement.

In Israel, the two strikes were hailed as an impressive show of strength and the product of an intricate intelligence-gathering operation. But Israelis also questioned their strategic benefit, beyond settling scores with Hamas for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel and Hezbollah for the strike on Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers. (Hezbollah denied it was behind that attack.)

Once the dust settles, more than 100 Israeli hostages will still remain captive in Gaza, Hamas will remain undefeated, and Hezbollah will continue pose a strategic threat along Israel’s northern border. And Iran will still exert influence over several proxy powers that threaten U.S. and Israeli interests in the region.

“Nothing is resolved,” said Itamar Rabinovich, Israel’s former ambassador to Washington. For Israelis, the strikes “lift the spirit here without solving any of the underlying issues,” Mr. Rabinovich said. “We are where we were.”

Some said the double assassination could provide a way out of the war altogether by allowing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to claim a symbolic victory, giving him space to back down in Gaza and perhaps agree to a cease-fire.

But Mr. Netanyahu may still avoid doing so if he believes a truce would result in the collapse of his government; his ruling coalition relies on far-right lawmakers who have threatened to quit the alliance if the war ends without Hamas’s defeat.

Vivian Yee contributed reporting.