Revenge.

Roger that.

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1. The New York Times:

Ismail Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders, was assassinated in Iran, the country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hamas said on Wednesday, a severe blow to the Palestinian group that threatens to engulf the region in further conflict.

Hamas accused Israel of killing Mr. Haniyeh, who led the group’s political operations from exile in Qatar. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the newly elected president of Iran, Hamas’s main backer.

Hours before the assassination, Israel said it had struck Fuad Shukr, a senior member of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia that is also backed by Iran and has been fighting a low-level war with Israel since October. The two strikes have suddenly shifted the calculus in the Middle East, after a month in which Israel and Hamas had appeared to edge closer to a cease-fire in Gaza. Such a deal was expected to lead to a truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

Now, the focus is on how Hamas and Hezbollah will respond to the attacks on their leaders; how Iran will react to a strike on its territory; and whether either reaction leads to the outbreak of a wider regional war. An Israeli strike on Iranian commanders in Syria in April led Iran to fire hundreds of missiles at Israel.

Mr. Haniyeh was a key figure in Hamas’s cease-fire negotiations with Israel, and his assassination makes the prospects for a deal even more unclear. (Source: nytimes.com)

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2. Avenging Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination is “Tehran’s duty” because it occurred in the Iranian capital, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Wednesday. According to Reuters, Khamenei said Israel had provided the grounds for “harsh punishment” for itself. “We consider his revenge as our duty,” he said. There has been no immediate comment from Israel on the strike, which took place hours after Haniyeh attended the inauguration ceremony for Iran’s new president. (Source: theguardian.com)

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3. The New York Times:

Israel yesterday launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb 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 target of the Israeli strike in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital was Fuad Shukr, a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.

The Israel Defense Forces later said in a statement that its fighter jets had “eliminated” Mr. Shukr, but there was no confirmation from Hezbollah, the powerful Iran-backed group, and the claim could not be independently verified.

Hezbollah has denied carrying out the attack in the Golan Heights on Saturday. The latest strikes were likely to fuel concerns that Israel’s long-running conflict with the group could escalate into a full-blown war even as Israel wages a military offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after that group led a deadly assault in Israel on Oct. 7. (Source: nytimes.com)

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4. U.S. forces carried out an airstrike in Iraq last night, targeting unspecified “combatants” attempting to launch a one-way attack drone, officials said. The incident followed attacks on American positions in Iraq and Syria in recent days, officials said, ending what had been months of relative calm between U.S. forces and militias there that are supported by Iran. U.S. officials said the airstrike happened in Musayib, a town south of Baghdad, but disclosed few other details. (Source: washingtonpost.com)

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5. The U.S. has agreed to arm dozens of F-16 jet fighters being sent to Ukraine with American-made missiles and other advanced weapons, addressing a longstanding question about the Western aircraft. Denmark and the Netherlands are preparing to send the first American-made F-16s to Ukraine this summer, and more will come later from Belgium and Norway. But until now the source of critical weapons for the planes has been unresolved. Though the Pentagon has limited inventory and production capability, it will supply the F-16s with air-to-ground munitions, precision-guidance kits for bombs and advanced air-to-air missiles in sufficient quantities to meet Ukraine’s most urgent needs, a senior U.S. official said. “We are confident that we will be able to supply all of those [weapons], at least the critical volumes that they need,” the U.S. official said. (Source: wsj.com)

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6. Just as a Beaver County SWAT sniper was finishing his shift at the Butler County Trump rally, he spotted the man who later turned out to be the 20-year-old gunman — nearly two hours before he took aim at the former president. “He knows you guys are up there,” the officer texted the snipers still in the building. “He’s sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit.” One responded seconds later at 4:27 p.m. with a thumbs-up emoji. Minutes later, another replied “Roger that.” But Thomas Matthew Crooks had time — more than 100 minutes — to lurk around the building, measure the distance to the stage with a rangefinder, crawl to an elevated firing position and take aim. The text messages, which were shared with the Post-Gazette and other media by U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), offers the most details so far of the minutes that culminated in one of the worst security failures ever involving a presidential candidate. More text messages would follow in a group chat among snipers from Beaver and Butler counties, pointing to the shooter’s positions as he moved around the building they were in. Around 5:15 p.m., an officer took a photo of him and shared it with the other SWAT operators. At 5:38 p.m., they spotted him again, directly below their position in the AGR International Inc. industrial complex, wearing a T-shirt and glasses. “Kid learning [sic] around building we are in. AGR I believe it is. I did see him with a range finder looking towards stage. FYI. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.” Not until 33 minutes later would Secret Service snipers fire the shots that killed Crooks — more than two hours after he had shown up and began preparing to assassinate the 45th president. The text messages continue to bring to light the critical security breaches that not only involve the Secret Service but the local law enforcement agencies they relied on to provide protection for Trump as well as thousands of rally-goers on July 13. (Source: post-gazette.com, italics mine)