Risk of Escalation in Middle East Grows but Is Not Foregone Conclusion

The two main mediators in Gaza cease-fire talks warned Wednesday that the assassination of a top Hamas leader in Iran could plunge the Middle East even deeper into chaos by sparking a new escalation in the violence.

The Gulf nation of Qatar, one of the mediators, said that the attack could upend peace negotiations. And Egypt’s foreign ministry condemned the strike as a “dangerous escalation” and warned against “fueling conflict in the region,” suggesting that Israel was uninterested in pursuing regional calm.

Still, the decision of whether to intensify the war into an all-out conflagration lies in the hands of a few decision makers in Iran, Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, according to analysts who said the most recent developments did not change those players’ fundamental desire to keep the conflict contained.

Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas political chief who was killed in Tehran, had been living in exile in Qatar for years along with other political leaders of the Gaza-based Palestinian militant group. Iran-backed Hamas blamed Israel for killing him, but Israel has so far declined to comment. He was visiting Iran for the inauguration of the country’s new president.

Just hours before, on Tuesday evening, Hezbollah, the powerful Lebanese militia that is also allied with Iran, may have lost a prominent figure of its own to an Israeli strike on a Beirut suburb. Israel said it had killed Fuad Shukr, a senior commander who Israel said was responsible for the attack on the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights on Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers, though Hezbollah said only that he was at the site of the strike.

Qatar’s foreign ministry warned that the strike, on top of Israel’s ongoing military offensive in Gaza, “could lead the region to slip into chaos.”