Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned of a "new phase" in the Israel-Hamas war to mourners at the funeral of a commander from the Lebanese group on Thursday.
The commander, Fouad Shukur, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, on Tuesday, Israel confirmed. The strike also killed an Iranian military adviser and at least five civilians, according to The Associated Press. Israel said Sukur was behind a rocket attack on Saturday that killed 12 children on a soccer field in Golan Heights, which is controlled by Israel. Hezbollah denied the accusations, AP reported.
Nasrallah said in a video speech for mourners at Sukur's funeral in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh: "We … have entered a new phase that is different from the previous period."
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, a strike killed Hamas' political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the capital of Iran. Iran has vowed to retaliate against Israel for the presumed Israeli assassination. Israel, however, has not claimed responsibility for the strike. Newsweek reached out to Israel's foreign ministry and military via email for comment.
"Do [the Israelis] expect that Hajj Ismail Haniyeh be killed in Iran and Iran will remain silent?" Nasrallah said in the video speech, according to AP. "Laugh a bit and you will cry a lot," the Hezbollah leader said, referring to people who celebrated the two killings.
Earlier Thursday, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed over Haniyeh's coffin with the new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian in a ceremony at Tehran University in Tehran.
Iran has supported Hamas in its war with Israel. On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack in Israel's history, killing about 1,200 Israelis and taking around 250 hostages. About 110 hostages remain in Gaza with roughly a third of them are believed to be dead. Israel subsequently launched a military operation in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, with the purpose of wiping out the militant group. Israel's operation in Gaza has killed over 39,000 Gazans so far, according to health officials in the region.
The recent killings of Shukur and Haniyeh threaten an escalation of the Israel-Hamas war.
Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, D.C., an international security think tank, wrote in an article published by the center on Wednesday that the two recent killings, "burnish Israel's reputation for proficiency in targeted assassinations while further jeopardizing hopes for a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, quiet on Israel's border with Lebanon, or the return of remaining Israeli hostages."
This is very much new territory," Joel Rubin, former deputy assistant secretary of state for House Affairs during the Obama administration, told Newsweek via telephone on Thursday.
Rubin said Israel may be trying to "take actions now as a precursor to a diplomatic arrangement with Hamas and some type of diplomatic arrangement with Hezbollah. And then from the sort of perspective of bargaining from a position of strength."
However, the foreign affairs expert said: "This also reduces the likelihood of getting in the near term, a ceasefire arrangement or a hostage exchange deal," adding: "But I'm not sure this is a direct lead to a regional war."
The Biden administration proposed a three-phase ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas in May, but it has yet to be accepted by the two warring regions.
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