US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday urged “all parties” in the Middle East to stop “escalatory actions” and achieve a ceasefire in Gaza, after Hamas’s political leader was killed in a strike in Tehran that Iran blamed on Israel. The strike that killed Ismail Haniyeh came just hours after Israel said it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in a retaliatory strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut. The killings took place as regional tensions were already inflamed by the war in Gaza, a conflict that has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
