This has to rank among the most dishonest reporting of this entire conflict, and that’s saying quite a lot.

The point of all of the coverage of this shouldn’t be the threat of a response, but the clear and egregious provocation that created that threat. That is rather obviously the real problem.

The plain fact of the matter is that the Israeli government, in order to more freely continue its genocide in Gaza without having to fend off cease-fire proposals (and hopefully carry out its obvious desire to provoke a broader regional war), assassinated the opposition’s lead negotiator.

That’s who and what Haniyeh was. He wasn’t a military leader, so the assassination obviously had nothing directly to do with the war itself. Rather, he was a political leader, and most notably the primary Hamas negotiator working toward a cease-fire, so the only logical conclusion is that that’s why Israel murdered him.

That shouldn’t be brushed aside - it should be the main point of any and all coverage, because it’s far and away the most significant aspect of the whole thing.

And as far as the threat of a response goes, the fact of the matter is that there’s a very simple way for the international community to head off that threat, and not coincidentally to simply do the right thing, and that’s to come together and impose on Israel - which is for all intents and purposes a rogue state - the exact sort of diplomatic condemnation and sanctions it so richly deserves for such an egregious act. There should be no colorable need for any of Hamas’s regional allies to seek retribution against Israel, since the international community as a whole, if it had any integrity, would be doing something itself about such a plainly obvious rogue state.