Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, and yet a week has gone by and the world continues to wait for what could come.
The anticipation is part of their attack, according to a top leader of one of Iran’s proxy groups.
Tehran has several proxies in the region that it funds and supports, including Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, militias in Iraq and Syria, as well as the Houthis in Yemen, all of whom could be involved in the retaliation to Haniyeh’s killing.
Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s leader, said of Israel, “Their government, their army, their society, their settlements, and their occupiers are all waiting,” according to CNN, and he added that the continued anticipation of a response is “part of the punishment.”
Rich Goldberg, a senior adviser for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told the Washington Examiner that part of Iran’s strategy is the “psychological terror that they are imposing on the population by waiting.”
Hezbollah is viewed by many as the proxy group most likely to participate in such a retaliatory attack.
Shortly before Haniyeh’s assassination, which Israel has not publicly said it was responsible for, the Israel military carried out a strike in Beirut that killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr. The Israelis said he was responsible for a rocket attack that occurred days before, in which a dozen teenagers were killed on a soccer field in the Golan Heights.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has vowed to “take revenge” given Haniyeh was killed in Tehran.
Hamas carried out the massive terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7 that prompted the eruption of fresh conflict in the region. Roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed in the attack, many of whom were civilians killed in their homes along the border, while roughly 250 others were kidnapped during the chaos, about 100 of whom remain in the enclave.
Since the attack, Israel has carried out a war against Hamas in Gaza, which has devastated the strip. The Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry has reported that roughly 40,000 people have been killed in the war, though that total does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. An overwhelming majority of Palestinian civilians have been displaced and face food insecurity and a lack of necessities, while Hamas intentionally embeds itself and operates within civilian populations to use as human shields.
Hamas’s top leader in Gaza is Yahya Sinwar, and he was just chosen to replace Haniyeh as the head of the group’s political bureau. Sinwar is believed to be hiding in Hamas’s extensive tunnel system underneath Gaza, though he has eluded Israeli forces since long before Oct. 7.
“With regard to Mr. Sinwar, he has been and remains the primary decider when it comes to concluding the ceasefire,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. “It is really on him to decide whether to move forward with a ceasefire … and that, besides changing everything for people in Gaza — bringing the hostages home, giving us an opportunity to build a more enduring peace for Gaza — also opens up other possibilities, other prospects, more broadly, in terms of de-escalating tensions and bringing real security and stability.”
While Israeli forces have operated within Gaza, Israel and Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon, have continuously attacked each other in rocket and missile fires over their shared border. These attacks have gone on since right after Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack. Tens of thousands of civilians have been and remain evacuated from their homes due to the fires.
Hezbollah’s arsenal is much more sophisticated than Hamas’s, and they have the ability to hit targets anywhere within Israel with precision-guided missiles if they choose to escalate the current conflict.
Should they choose, Hezbollah could target the Haifa port, power grids, water, or even population centers like Jerusalem or Tel Aviv if they want to inflict significant damage, according to Goldberg.
“We might all respond at the same time, or maybe it’s better in the [resistance] axis for each [group] to respond in the way that suits them and with the targets they choose,” Nasrallah said.
The United States is engaged in “intense diplomacy” to avoid escalation in the Middle East, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday, though the Pentagon has boosted its presence in the Middle East this week.
“We’ve adjusted our military posture to strengthen our force protection, to reinforce our ironclad commitment to the defense of Israel, and to remain prepared to respond to any contingency,” Austin said Tuesday evening. “I’ve also ordered more cruisers and destroyers capable of ballistic missile defense to the region, and I’ve ordered the deployment of another fighter squadron to the Middle East to reinforce our defensive air support capabilities there.”
Iran’s militias in Iraq and Syria have been less involved in attacks against Israel, though they have attacked U.S. forces based in Iraq, Syria, and Jordan about 170 times since Oct. 7. The attacks had largely stopped this summer, but seven U.S. personnel were injured in an attack on Monday at al Asad Air Base.
Like the militias, the Houthis have also carried out repeated attacks against Western interests in the region, specifically in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait. They’ve been able to severely affect commercial global shipping by firing rockets, missiles, and drones at commercial vessels off Yemen’s coasts.
The Houthis have also carried out more than 200 attacks toward Israel. A Houthi drone got through Israel’s air defenses and ultimately killed a civilian in Tel Aviv. Israel targeted the Yemeni port of Hodeidah in retaliation for that attack.
Iran rarely attacks Israel directly, most often relying on its proxies. Tehran has only attacked Israel once militarily since the war broke out in October.
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In response to an Israeli strike on an Iranian Consulate in Syria on April 1 that killed a senior Iranian commander and others, Tehran carried out an unprecedented aerial attack against Israel, which included the launching of roughly 300 rockets, missiles, and drones from Iranian territory and its proxies.
Israel, with the help of several allies including the U.S., intercepted an overwhelming majority of the projectiles and there was very limited damage and only one casualty.