Middle East Braces as Iran & Hezbollah Vow Retaliation for Israeli Assassinations

Iran has rejected a call by France, Germany and the United Kingdom demanding it refrain from any retaliatory attacks over the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31. Tensions also remain high on Israel’s northern border as Lebanon-based Hezbollah vows to respond to the Israeli assassination of its senior military commander Fuad Shukr. On Friday, Israel continued its assassination campaign by killing a Hamas commander in the Lebanese city of Sidon. “It’s a very, very tense time here in Beirut, and in Lebanon more generally,” says Karim Makdisi, a professor of international politics at the American University of Beirut. He says the cycle of escalation across the region has a clear cause, which is Israel’s war on Gaza backed by the United States, and that ending the violence there will bring calm elsewhere. “Get a ceasefire, everything stops.”