What can stop the spread of Gaza's flames?

If Iran's newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was hoping for a honeymoon period after his inauguration late last month, he must be sadly disappointed.

- Simon Tisdall

Less than 12 hours after he was sworn in, an explosion, reportedly caused by a remotely controlled bomb, shook an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) compound in central Tehran. The target: Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's political leader, an honoured guest at the inauguration, and one of the Middle East's most wanted. The bomb killed Haniyeh instantly. Honeymoon over.

Pezeshkian was the surprise winner of last month's presidential election. Edging out a conservative hardliner favoured by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, he promised to repair tattered ties with the US and Europe. Many hoped his victory would herald a more open, more progressive era and defuse social tensions.

The Haniyeh assassination, attributed to Israel and not denied in Jerusalem, has scrambled all those hopes. Pezeshkian finds himself in the eye of an international storm that analysts warn could lead to all-out war, engulfing the Middle East.

Infuriated by an audacious attack that humiliated him, his country and its elite armed forces, Khamenei Iran's ultimate authority - is said to have ordered preparations for direct military retaliation against Israel. Avenging Haniyeh's death was "our duty", Khamenei said. Pezeshkian had no choice but to meekly go along. Now the world waits to see what Iran will do. So much for a fresh start.

The Middle East has frequently tottered on the brink of catastrophe in the fraught months since Hamas's 7 October attacks, launched on Israel from Gaza, that killed about 1,200 people. In April, after Israel assassinated top IRGC commanders at Iran's consulate in Damascus, Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones in its first head-on attack on Israel since the 1979 revolution. An ad hoc international coalition comprising the US, UK, French, Saudi and Jordanian airforces helped Israel intercept and destroy most of the projectiles, but it was a close-run thing.