There is anticipation of what Iran, Hezbollah and the Houthis might do in the face of the Israeli bombing of Gaza, and the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
A few days ago, the occupation army announced the assassination of Ali Nazih Abdul Ali, the leader of the southern front of the Lebanese Hezbollah, by a drone that targeted his car in an area between Wadi Jilo and Al-Bazouriyeh and burned it. The US has already sent warplanes and warships to the Middle East.
Iran's response
Iran and Hezbollah described the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran as an "Israeli crossing of red lines". The Iranian Revolutionary Guard published a statement about the method of assassinating Haniyeh, in which it said that the assassination was carried out with a short-range missile with a warhead weighing approximately 7 kilograms from outside the boundaries of the guest's residence, where Haniyeh was staying, and led to a severe explosion.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard denied the story published by the New York Times about a bomb that was planted in advance in Haniyeh's room. In its statement, the Revolutionary Guard renewed its threat that "the Zionist entity will receive painful and severe punishment at the appropriate time and place."
Consequently, the expected Iranian response cannot be predicted. It could be in the manner of the attacks last April - with drones and missiles - or it could be a large-scale attack. Iranian statements and threats announced on Tehran TV include the broadcasting of war songs and information about preparations for war.
Analysts' expectations vary. Some expect the Iranian response may not differ from the operation last April, while other analysts believe that the Iranian response will more severe and broader than these attacks.
The assassination of Haniyeh on Tehran's soil and the successive Israeli strikes represent a major embarrassment for Iran, which appears weak and compromised. Hence, there is a need to respond in a way that restores Tehran's prestige, especially since it has not entered a large-scale war since the end of the Iran-Iraq war in the late 1980s. Iran has also been content with managing war and conflicts through agents.
While Iran confirmed that "revenge for the blood of the martyr Ismail Haniyeh" is inevitable, and the Zionist entity will be severely punished for this gamble and terrorist crime," the US Department of Defense, often known as the Pentagon, announced the strengthening of the US military presence in the region, with warships, fighter jets, and ships equipped with defense systems to counter ballistic missiles.
Israel also confirmed that its army is on high alert. All these developments indicate that Netanyahu is celebrating assassinations, qualitative operations, and confrontation with the Iranian axis, to gain more time for his political future, and is using the US election for his own adventures as well as promoting fighting on more than one front. Netanyahu is also demanding that the US supplies more weapons, defence systems, and economic support, to compensate for the huge losses to the Israeli economy, estimated at hundreds of billions of dollars.
Photo: How Tehran will respond to the killing of Hamas' Haniyah is unknown ( by Adobe).