Following the killings of Hezbollah’s Fuad Shukr and Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh, Israel and the Middle East are poised and waiting for the next move. The two killings represent a significant humiliation for the Iran-led regional axis, which until this point had been projecting a sense of achievement and satisfaction.

Is Israel prepared to up the ante to the point of regional war?

The October 7 massacres and the subsequent war may not have come at the express order or at the precise time wanted by the regime in Tehran. But