A week after the Israeli assassinations of Hizbullah leader Fouad Shukr in Beirut and Hamas Political Bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran the region remains on tenterhooks, waiting for the retaliation which Iran has vowed to deliver.

Iran and Hizbullah have promised to avenge the attacks. Both have spoken of a “crushing response” and “an open war”, sending the world of diplomacy into overdrive as it tries to de-escalate tensions.

“The US wants Iran to swallow its pride and opt for a contained retaliation, especially if it is thinking of launching a barrage of rockets from Iran to Israel,” said a Cairo-based foreign diplomatic source.

In April, following an Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic facility in Syria that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Commander Brigadier General Mohamed Reza Zahedi, Iran opted for a relatively low-key response which Israel, faced with Western diplomatic pressure, managed to swallow.  

“Iran’s political calculations are complicated. Iran wants to improve its relations with the US and the West in the hope of reducing the sanctions imposed on Tehran,” said an Egyptian diplomat who has served in the Iranian capital. He added, however, that the latest Israeli strikes have changed the rules, not least because the assassination of Haniyeh took place on Iranian territory, “in the capital right after the inauguration ceremony” of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.

The situation has presented Pezeshkian, a reformist who came to power after his radical predecessor Ebrahim Raisi died in a plane crash, with his first major challenge. According to the same diplomat, the new Iranian president has no interest in entering an open-ended war, of strikes and counter strikes, with Israel.

“Iran will be weighing its next steps carefully, which is why it did not opt for an immediate reaction,” he said. “But, of course, a reaction will come.”

Amid the flurry of diplomatic activity following the Israeli strikes, senior American and Russian political, security, and military officials shuttled to the Middle East to talk to their Iranian, Israeli, Lebanese, and other regional counterparts about what can be done to avert a wider confrontation.

The US has also been sending naval vessels and fighter jets to the region to help Israel “defend itself” against the strikes that seem to be looming. A number of airlines have suspended flights to capitals in the region, particularly to Beirut and Tel Aviv. Foreign nationals have been urged to leave Lebanon and Israel and many dual national Israelis have left the country or are planning to do so.

On Monday afternoon, Middle East Time, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and presidential candidate Donald Trump both said an Iranian retaliatory strike could take place on Monday evening. On the same day, a group of Iraq-based American soldiers were wounded when their base was attacked by a pro-Iranian militant Iraqi group.

 “It is obvious that Iran’s allies will take part in the retaliatory act,” said an informed Egyptian security source, including Hizbullah, which lost a senior leader. There are also Iran factions in Iraq and the Houthis in Yemen.

In a statement on Tuesday, Hizbullah Chief Hassan Nasrallah said that Iran does not have to go to war itself but it can certainly provide support to the resistance which includes his group, the Houthis in Yemen, and others elsewhere.

“In the coming few days we could see simultaneous or consecutive attacks on Israeli and American targets in the region,” said the security source.

While Cairo- and Lebanon-based sources say Iran is not interested in entering into a full-fledged war with Israel, Netanyahu, on the other hand, is leaving the door open to such a confrontation, having calculated that it will distract from his domestic political problems and the failure of his government to return the majority of Israeli hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October — with only a small group having been handed over during a brief ceasefire that was struck in November last year. Tellingly, on Tuesday, an Israeli drone struck Ali Jawad, a senior Hizbullah commander.

The Egyptian security source said all the signs point to Israel continuing with its attempts to assassinate senior Hizbullah and Hamas figures.

“It is hard to know who will be next, but Israel is clearly trying hard to get Yehia Al-Sinwar,” he said.

He argued that while Israel’s main focus has been on Hamas, it is now targeting Hizbullah leaders so that Netanyahu can present himself to the Israeli public as someone who successfully weakened both groups.

The same Cairo- and Lebanon-based sources say that Netanyahu has been bragging in high-level meetings with his aides and with foreign interlocutors about the muted response the assassinations of Shukr and Haniyeh elicited from the vast majority of Arab and Muslim countries. He is also confident, they say, that faced with an attack from either Iran or from Hizbullah and the Houthis, Israel will receive the unequivocal support it needs from the US despite ongoing tensions with Biden, and from neighbouring countries who have told Iran that they will not tolerate drones or missiles heading towards Israel crossing their airspace, either from Iran or from Tehran’s allies.

According to Mohamed Ibrahim, deputy chair of the Egyptian Centre for Strategic Studies, the big questions today are not about strikes and retaliatory strikes but about the day after. This, he said, applies just as much to the Israeli war on Gaza as to Israel’s open-ended confrontation with Iran “which did not start last week”.

In a carefully worded statement released by Egypt’s Foreign Ministry following the killing of Shukr and Haniyeh, Cairo warned of the “grave consequences” of Israel pursuing its policy of assassinations.

In talks with the visiting foreign ministers of Turkey and Lebanon, Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty said that Egypt is committed to working towards de-escalation in Lebanon and to securing greater access for humanitarian relief to Gaza.

Egypt’s concerns over an extended military confrontation in the Middle East were also shared earlier this week with a high-ranking Israeli intelligence delegation, said a government source.

“They were told that while it looks increasingly hard to reach a ceasefire for the war in Gaza anytime soon, it is imperative to avoid a multiple-front war.”

Speaking on Tuesday afternoon, during a joint press conference with his Lebanese counterpart in Cairo, Abdelatty called on all parties “to refrain from dragging the region into an open regional war”.

On Tuesday evening, as Al-Sinwar was announced as the new chief of Hamas, Egyptian and European diplomatic sources said that the choice is quite alarming given that Al-Sinwar is the on-the-ground head of the combating brigades of Hamas. In the words of one of these diplomats, “this choice is an indication that Hamas will put militant resistance over political negotiations, at least on the short and medium run.”

Hours ahead of the announcement, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi and Jordanian King Abdullah had spoken on the phone. According to an official statement on the talks that was issued in Cairo, Al-Sisi and Abdullah discussed the work required to secure a ceasefire in Gaza. Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Blinken said that a ceasefire is still possible despite everything that has been unfolding. However, speaking after the announcement of Al-Sinwar as the new chief of Hamas, a Cairo-based European diplomat said “things are different now.”

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* A version of this article appears in print in the 8 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly