KUALA LUMPUR: On Wednesday, July 31, Hamas's political chief Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a strike in Tehran, Iran, where he was attending the Iranian president's inauguration.
Hamas reported that their leader and his bodyguard were assassinated in the early hours of the morning and have accused Israel of carrying out the strike.
They described this attack as a severe escalation that would not achieve its intended goals.
World leaders, including Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, have condemned the assassination, with Anwar calling it a sabotage of ongoing peace efforts in Gaza.
Haniyeh's assassination is not the first targeting of a Hamas leader or operative.
Since the group's founding in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising, many Palestinian leaders and operatives have been targeted by the Israeli Defence Force.
In this episode, we delve deeper into how this recent killing has sparked fears of wider escalation in a region already strained by Israel's war in Gaza and the worsening conflict in Lebanon.
Op-ed and foreign news editor Azman Abdul Hamid joined us on set.
Watch the full discussion on NST Online's YouTube channel.