AILSA CHANG, HOST:

We turn now to the Middle East, where two developments in the past 24 hours have pushed tensions to a critical point. First, Israel said it killed a leader of the militant group Hezbollah in Beirut, and then another air strike, allegedly carried out by Israel, took out another leader of another group, Hamas. Ismail Haniyeh was the group's top political leader and head of negotiations for a possible cease-fire deal in Gaza. Given Haniyeh's public-facing role and leadership, we wanted to know what his death means for Hamas. So we called Khaled Elgindy. He's a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, where he directs the program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Welcome back to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

KHALED ELGINDY: Thanks for having me back.

CHANG: Well, Israel has now allegedly killed 3 out of the 4 top leaders of Hamas, but Hamas says its leaders don't matter, that it has lost plenty of leaders to Israeli attacks before. How do you see the loss of Haniyeh affecting the group's operations and the war in Gaza overall?

ELGINDY: Well, in terms of Hamas' operations, it's not going to change that much in the immediate term in that there will be a replacement. And it is not the first time that Hamas leader has been assassinated by Israel. And Hamas will survive, but also probably gain a lot of domestic political support among Palestinians because Haniyeh was seen as someone who - not a radical, not even a military person.

CHANG: I want to follow up on that. You think that there will be actually more support for Hamas following Haniyeh's death because he was moderate, but, I mean, doesn't that depend on who succeeds Haniyeh? If he was more moderate, in your view, might that actually harden Hamas' resolve and perhaps leave leadership in the hands of hard-liners?

ELGINDY: Yeah, and I think the two things can both be true. I mean, you can gain support because people will sympathize with Hamas that has taken so many losses, and also, it is likely to radicalize the movement from within and embolden hard-liners like Yahya Sinwar, the military leader and the de facto leader of Hamas in Gaza who clearly had a role in planning the October 7 attack. And he's been the one really making the decisions as far as whether or not to accept a cease-fire deal. Ismail Haniyeh was one of the negotiators and was seen, I think, by a lot of people as a moderating influence, as someone who - because of his roots in Gaza, as someone who could speak in terms that Yahya Sinwar could relate to.

Now, whoever is appointed to replace him is probably not going to be from Gaza, so will be one more step removed from that process. But more broadly, I don't see how Hamas would go back to a cease-fire negotiation under these conditions in which the person who is - Israel was indirectly negotiating with, it also killed.

CHANG: Well, Hamas says it will seek revenge for this, but what exactly can Hamas do now? It's fighting a guerrilla war in Gaza, and it is very much on its back foot militarily, no?

ELGINDY: Yeah, sure. It is, but it's not going to be eliminated, certainly not by political assassination. Political assassinations are notoriously ineffective at destroying one's political enemies. It's impossible to say what they might be planning, but I think it's fairly certain that they will respond in some way. And I think it's also quite likely that Iran will also find a reason to respond because this happened on its own soil in the heart of its capital.

CHANG: Exactly. And Iran has pledged revenge. It supports both Hamas and Hezbollah. And now there are these increased concerns of escalation of conflict in the Middle East. What will you be watching for in the next hours, the next days?

ELGINDY: We're going to be looking for responses on all fronts. Hezbollah has a reason now to respond to Israel given the assassination or apparent assassination of its No. 2 in Beirut. Iran has a reason to retaliate. And the fact that the United States was caught completely unawares and was in the dark I think says a lot about the nature of the U.S.-Israel relationship and just - you know, is it only special on one side? If the Israeli side didn't feel the need to notify the Americans beforehand, what does that say about their respect for the Biden administration?

CHANG: Indeed. Well, what are you personally most worried about as you're watching the next few days?

ELGINDY: Well, I'm extremely worried about the possibility of an all-out regional war and one in which the United States could find itself kind of reluctantly dragged in. And I think that prospect is closer than at any point since October 7. This is an extremely dangerous moment and one in which people really have to question the wisdom of these kinds of attacks.

CHANG: Khaled Elgindy, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute. Thank you very much.

ELGINDY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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