The Israel Defense Forces targeted a senior Lebanese Hezbollah leader in Beirut on Tuesday. Israel says that the missile strike constitutes retaliation for a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 Israeli children on Saturday.

The Israeli action appears clever in its strategic calculation. I say that for two reasons.

Ismail Haniyeh, a top Hamas leader, was assassinated in Iran. Follow our live updates.

Israel launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that it blamed Hezbollah for and that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field.

The leadership of the Palestinian armed group Hamas has been left in "a state of shock" by the assassination of its political leader Ismail Haniyeh, top officials have told the BBC.

Hamas says Haniyeh, 62, was killed in an Israeli strike early on Wednesday morning in Iran. Widely considered the group's overall leader, he has been a prominent member since the late 1980s.

As head of its political bureau based in Qatar, Haniyeh led Hamas' outreach to regional governments and was central to its alliance with Tehran and its proxy groups across the Middle East.

Iran had planned to use this week’s inauguration of its new president to show off its powerful collection of militias. Representatives of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Yemen’s Houthis and Lebanon’s Hezbollah all gathered in Tehran, where Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh hugged new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian amid chants of “Death to Israel.”

Israel Strikes Hezbollah Commander in Beirut in Retaliation for Deadly Majdal Shams Attack At least two were reportedly killed in the strike, but it remains unclear if the target of the strike, Hezbollah's Fuad Shukr, was hit. Shukr was allegedly responsible for the strike on Majdal Shams that killed 12 on Saturday

The "intensive" phase of Israel's offensive in Gaza will soon end, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday — but he signaled he would only accept a "partial" cease-fire deal that would not end the war, and that this new phase would allow a shift in focus to the simmering conflict on the country's northern border with Lebanon.

Canada has listed Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a “terrorist” entity and urged its citizens in Iran to leave.

The Canadian government made the announcement on Wednesday, saying that the move will help Ottawa with “countering terrorist financing”.

If Israel gets into a major war with Hezbollah, the terrorist group, is threatening to fight without rules and without a ceiling. That serious threat comes as a spat between the Biden administration and Israel over the U.S. withholding weapons may be over.

Diplomatic efforts by an American envoy sent to head off an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel don't appear to be succeeding.

Now, both Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are ramping up their threats against each other.