The missile that struck a building in southern Beirut on Tuesday, killing Hezbollah’s senior military commander Fuad Shukr, had been widely anticipated. Three days earlier, a Hezbollah rocket – which had no doubt missed its military target in northern Israel – struck a football pitch in the Israeli-controlled Syrian Golan Heights. Twelve young people between the ages of ten and 20 were killed.
With the Beirut strike targeting a single Hezbollah leader, Israel carried out its pledge of a “harsh response” while also keeping it relatively contained in terms of the conflict between the two sides.
What had not been anticipated was the sequel hours later. Another airstrike targeted an apartment block in Tehran. It killed the political leader of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, only hours after he had met both Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
