U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Wednesday that Israel’s killing of a Hezbollah commander in Beirut and the assassination of the Hamas political leader in Tehran “represent a dangerous escalation” of tensions in the Mideast.
Guterres said in a statement that at a time when “all efforts” should be focused on reaching a cease-fire in the nearly 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and increasing humanitarian aid to famished Palestinians, instead “what we are seeing are efforts to undermine these goals.”
Guterres called for “maximum restraint by all” but acknowledged “that restraint alone is insufficient at this extremely sensitive time.”
“The international community must work together to urgently prevent any actions that could push the entire Middle East over the edge, with a devastating impact on civilians,” Guterres said.
Israel on Tuesday evening killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fouad Shukur, in an airstrike on one of the militant group’s buildings on a densely populated street in Beirut. Israel said Shukur was responsible for an attack last weekend that killed 12 children and teenagers playing football on a field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.
Hours later, the militant group Hamas said that Israel had assassinated its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, where Haniyeh had traveled to attend the swearing-in of Iran’s new president.
The Israeli military, while announcing the attack on Tuesday that killed Shukur, made no comment about the predawn airstrike Wednesday in the Iranian capital.
In a subsequent statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Jewish state "will exact a heavy price from any aggression against us on any front" but did not mention the assassination of Haniyeh.
Despite the attacks that occurred within hours of each other, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said, “We don't believe that an escalation [of Mideast tensions] is inevitable. And there's no signs that an escalation is imminent. But I also said that we watch it very, very closely.”
The U.S. State Department urged Americans to avoid travel to the entirety of Lebanon, not just the Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon for which it had previously issued do-not-travel guidance.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Haniyeh was killed in the early hours of Wednesday, although details of the attack were not immediately known. Hamas said in a posting on Telegram that Haniyeh was killed at a residence in the Iranian capital.
Khamenei vowed to retaliate, saying Israel “prepared a harsh punishment for itself.”
“We consider his revenge as our duty,” Khamenei said in a statement on his official website, noting Haniyeh was “a dear guest in our home.”
Hamas’ armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also vowed to retaliate and warned of “major repercussions” for the Middle East.
Haniyeh lived in Qatar and was a key Hamas voice in the ongoing but stalemated cease-fire talks with Israel over the war in Gaza. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said one of Haniyeh’s bodyguards also was killed in the attack.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in an interview with Channel News Asia in Singapore, said the killing of Haniyeh “is something we were not aware of or involved in.”
The top U.S. diplomat declined to assess how the assassination would affect the Gaza cease-fire talks.
“I’ve learned over many years never to speculate on the impact that an event has had on something else. So I can’t tell you what this means,” Blinken said.
But Blinken said the incident made it more important to reach a cease-fire deal to ease the suffering of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and free several dozen remaining hostages.
Haniyeh’s death came nearly 10 months after Iran-backed Hamas launched a terror attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 39,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry, while Israel says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters it has killed.
Haniyeh became the head of Hamas’ political bureau in 2017 and had been living in exile in Qatar after leaving Gaza in 2019.
Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying for months to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, but that process faced serious questions Wednesday.
“Political assassinations & continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al said on the social media platform X. “Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life.”
Qatar’s foreign ministry called the strike a “dangerous escalation.”
"This assassination and the reckless Israeli behavior of continuously targeting civilians in Gaza will lead to the region slipping into chaos and undermine the chances of peace,” Qatar’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Blinken said in Singapore, “All I can tell you right now is I think nothing takes away from the importance … of getting to the cease-fire.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters in the Philippines that in addition to the pursuit of a Gaza cease-fire, fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border remained a concern and that he would continue discussions with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and key leaders in the region.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure that we keep things from turning into a broader conflict throughout the region,” Austin said.
Gallant said Tuesday that Israel, in killing Shukur, “conducted a precise and professional operation to eliminate Hezbollah’s most senior military commander. We have shown that the blood of our people has a price, and that there is no place out of reach for our forces to this end.”
After the killing of Haniyeh, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on X that his country would defend its territorial integrity, honor and pride, and would make the Israelis “regret their cowardly act.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that Haniyeh’s killing was “a cowardly act and a serious escalation” of Mideast tensions.
Turkey condemned what it called the “shameful assassination” of Haniyeh. The Turkish foreign ministry said in a statement that “this attack also aims to spread the Gaza war to a regional dimension.”
Russia also condemned Haniyeh’s killing, calling it an “unacceptable political assassination.”
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
