One of India’s foremost experts on the Middle East and a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE, Talmiz Ahmad, has said that he believes Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could have ordered the killing of Hamas leader and former Prime Minister of Palestine, Ismail Haniyeh, to scuttle peace talks, because if a successful ceasefire had been agreed to, Netanyahu would have lost his job as Prime Minister of Israel.

Ahmad does not believe that the Biden administration in Washington would have been consulted, leave aside given prior clearance, before  Haniyeh's assassination. He also believes that although Hamas and Iran will retaliate – and separately Hezbollah for the killing of Fuad Shukr 24 hours earlier – they will do so in their own time and in a measured way, because they do not wish to provoke a wider regional conflict.

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