Yesterday, Israel warned that it would eliminate the new leader of Hamas, Yahya Sinwar, as the war in the Gaza Strip with the Palestinian Islamist movement, now in its eleventh month, threatens to spread across the Middle East.

Yahya Sinwar was named the new political leader of Hamas on Tuesday evening, succeeding Ismail Haniyeh, whose assassination on July 31 in Tehran was attributed to Israel by Iran, which vowed revenge.

Israeli authorities accuse the top figure of the Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip of being among the masterminds of the unprecedented raid in October in southern Israel, which sparked this war.

Yahya Sinwar, whose movement is labeled a terrorist organization by Israel, the U.S., and the EU, has been in Israel’s crosshairs for years and has not appeared publicly since October 7.

“We will intensify our efforts to find him,” stated Israel’s Chief of General Staff, General Herzi Halevi, yesterday.

Despite all mediation efforts failing so far, the war, which has claimed at least 40,000 lives in the small besieged Palestinian enclave according to the Hamas Ministry of Health, threatens to spread across the Middle East, involving Iran and its allies on one side and Israel and its allies, particularly the U.S., on the other.

Tensions escalated dramatically after the deaths of Ismail Haniyeh and Fouad Shukr, a senior figure of Hezbollah’s military wing, on July 30 in an Israeli bombing in a southern suburb of Beirut.

Hezbollah and Iran have a “duty to retaliate” for the two assassinations, said Hezbollah’s armed Lebanese movement leader Hassan Nasrallah on Tuesday, warning that there would be retaliation “regardless of the consequences.”

During a meeting in Saudi Arabia yesterday, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) deemed Israel “fully responsible” for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh. Its acting president, Mamadou Tangara (Gambia), condemned the killing, which he said could lead to a “broader conflict” in the Middle East.

Facing the risk of the war spreading, the international community is seeking ways to de-escalate and resume indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas to reach a ceasefire agreement in the Gaza Strip, accompanied by the release of Israeli hostages in the Palestinian enclave in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

Diplomatic contacts have intensified, especially among countries mediating the indirect negotiations (Qatar, Egypt, USA). “We believe we have never been closer” to reaching a ceasefire agreement, said John Kirby, spokesperson for the U.S. National Security Council, yesterday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, whose government is Israel’s main international ally, demanded on Tuesday that Iran and Israel avoid military “escalation.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also urged Tehran to abandon the “logic of retaliation,” stressing that further escalation “is not in anyone’s interest,” while also calling on the Israeli Prime Minister to “avoid a cycle of retaliation.”

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, on the other hand, demanded that Western countries stop supporting Israel to “avoid” a regional armed conflict.

After ten months of war, Israeli armed forces continue their ground and air assault against Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007, particularly in areas where they claimed to have full control before new battles erupted.

The Israeli army reported yesterday that it continues its operations in the central part of the enclave, where it “eliminated many terrorists.”

In Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on October 7, 1,198 people, mostly civilians, were killed, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people abducted that day, 111 remain held hostage in Gaza, though 39 are believed to be dead, according to the Israeli army.

In retaliation, Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, and in the large-scale operations it has conducted since then, at least 39,677 people have been killed, according to the latest figures from Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

These operations have plunged the Palestinian enclave into a humanitarian disaster, with the vast majority of its 2.4 million inhabitants displaced.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced yesterday that it is sending over one million polio vaccines as the virus was detected in sewage samples.

The European Union, France, and the United Kingdom condemned statements by Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (far-right) yesterday, who said it would be “justified” and “moral” to “let the people of Gaza starve” to “free the hostages.”

In anticipation of the retaliation announced by Iran and its allies, tension remains high in Israel this week.

“We are determined to defend ourselves,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to the Tel Hashomer military base near Tel Aviv yesterday.

Egypt announced yesterday that it had asked its airlines not to use Iranian airspace this morning due to “military exercises” scheduled in the Islamic Republic.

Concerns about the risk of escalation remain high, particularly in Lebanon, where Israeli military aircraft—once again in recent days—broke the sound barrier over Beirut yesterday.

Since October 8, the day after the unprecedented raid by the military wing of the Palestinian Islamist movement in southern Israel, Hezbollah, a key component of the Iranian-backed “axis of resistance,” opened a front against Israel in southern Lebanon to “support” its ally Hamas. Exchanges of fire along the border are practically daily.

A source from the Lebanese security forces told AFP that two people, a civilian and a Hezbollah member, were killed in an Israeli bombardment in Jwaya, southern Lebanon, yesterday. In a press release, the Israeli army announced that it had eliminated “terrorists” in that area.

Hezbollah reported launching rockets in retaliation against Israel. The Israeli army announced that it had “destroyed” a facility from which the Lebanese movement had launched a drone towards the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel has annexed.