Hamas Killing Pointer To Longer, Larger War?

The leader of the political wing of Hamas, Ismael Haniyeh, was killed on Tuesday in an airstrike in Tehran. He had just attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

- V Sudarshan

Iranian News agency IRNA reported that at 2 am local time an “airborne guided projectile’’ struck the building where Haniyeh was staying, a residence for veterans in the north of the city.

Though nobody claimed responsibility for the attack it is a foregone conclusion as to who stands to gain from the action: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has accordingly sworn revenge on Israel, a sign that escalation could be afoot.

According to a statement attributed to him, Khamenei said Israel "prepared a harsh punishment for itself. We consider his revenge as our duty."

Oddly enough Haniyeh has spent time in an Israeli prison and was briefly an elected Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority before he moved to Doha where he took up residence and rose to become the head of the political wing of the Hamas.