Deadly waiting game: Violence spikes as Israel awaits Iran revenge
Dan MorrisonWASHINGTON − In Tehran, leaders mulled how to avenge a bold assassination attributed to Israel without sparking a wider war. In Tel Aviv, some residents hit the beach while others checked on their bomb shelters. In Beirut, families worried over how to escape, while in Washington, the Biden administration worked to limit the force of Israel’s anticipated response to Iran’s expected retaliation.
It was another tense and violent day in the Middle East’s forever war, where drone strikes and gunfights were overshadowed by the question of if and when Iran would strike Israel after the death of a top Hamas leader in Tehran.
"One of the points of the engagements that we have had is to urge countries to pass messages to Iran and urge countries to make clear to Iran that it is very much not in their interests to escalate this conflict, that is very much not in their interest to launch another attack on Israel," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters Monday.
More:Fears of Iranian attack on Israel keep tension high in Middle East
At the same time, reports said U.S. officials were sending Israel the same message of restraint, even as American forces converged on the region to defend Israel and U.S. military bases against the expected Iranian assault.
Amid the tension, world oil prices continued to fall as fears over a widening Mideast conflict couldn’t eclipse concerns about a slowing U.S. economy.
The current crisis within a crisis started last week when Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a bomb attack at a Tehran guest house. It was a stunning breach – a leader of one of Iran’s top proxies, slain in an exclusive enclave of the capital. Iran blamed Israel, which didn’t comment.
Haniyeh’s death came one day after an Israeli strike killed senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, along with three civilians, outside Beirut, in revenge for a rocket attack that killed a dozen Israeli children as they played on a basketball court.
As Hezbollah members gathered to hear leader Hassan Nasrallah memorialize Shukr on Tuesday, Israeli jets broke the sound barrier over Beirut, sending people scattering and rushing to open their windows to keep them from shattering.
More:Iran says it does not want regional escalation but must 'punish' Israel
It was unclear what Iran's reply to the Haniyeh assassination would look like. A massive Iranian attack on Israel in April was a bust, as the U.S., Israel, Jordan and other Western allies shot down 300 drones and missiles.
Violent incidents continued across the region on Tuesday, even as U.S. and Western officials continued to call for a cease-fire in the 10-month Gaza war.
On Tuesday, the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah launched a series of drone and rocket attacks into northern Israel but warned that its much-anticipated retaliation for Fuad’s death was yet to come. Six Israelis were hospitalized, one in critical condition, after a drone interceptor missed the mark and crashed to the ground, an official told Reuters.
On the West Bank, Israeli forces killed at least 12 people after raids around two flashpoint cities. The military said it conducted two separate air strikes in the volatile city of Jenin, hitting armed militant cells, but gave no details.
More:Who was Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader killed in Iran?
The raids came as the aid group Doctors Without Borders released a report accusing Israel of blocking civilian access to medical care during an ongoing crackdown by soldiers and armed Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
“The movement restrictions, and harassment and violence by Israeli forces and settlers, is inflicting immense and unnecessary suffering on Palestinians in Hebron,” Frederieke van Dongen, a humanitarian affairs manager with the group, said in a statement. “This is having a disastrous impact on people’s mental and physical health.”
In Gaza, health officials said three schools being used as civilian shelters were hit by Israeli strikes in recent days. The Palestinian health ministry said 143 Palestinians were killed and 341 were injured between Thursday and Monday. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its counts.
Some 39,623 Palestinians have been reported killed and 91,469 injured in Israeli fire since Oct. 7 when Islamist militant fighters swarmed into Israel from Gaza, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages.
Contributing: Reuters