Thursday Briefing: A Hamas leader’s assassination threatens war

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August 1, 2024

	By Whet Moser

Good morning. We’re covering fears of a wider Middle East war and a Times analysis of Venezuela’s election results.

Plus, is the Paris Olympics’ pool too shallow?

A group of professors in Tehran protesting the killing of Ismail Haniyeh. Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times

The assassination of a Hamas leader threatens war

Ismail Haniyeh, who led the political operations for Hamas from Qatar, was assassinated yesterday in Tehran, where he had traveled to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president.

Both Iran and Hamas accused Israel of killing Haniyeh. Now, the focus is on whether a response from Iran and its proxies could lead to a wider regional war. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Haniyeh’s assassination would prompt a “harsh punishment.”

It is not clear how the killing was carried out, and Israel’s military has not commented on Haniyeh’s death. Hezbollah also confirmed yesterday that Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander, had been killed in an Israeli strike on a Beirut suburb on Tuesday. Here’s the latest.

“The assassination of a Hamas leader on Iranian soil is the most brazen breach of Iran’s defenses in years, while the strike on a Hezbollah commander in Beirut is Israel’s biggest escalation in Lebanon since the start of the war,” said Patrick Kingsley, our Jerusalem bureau chief. “Anything could happen, but the sides avoided escalation during a similarly tense moment in April, and we could see the same here.” Read his analysis here.

Haniyeh was a key figure in Hamas’s cease-fire negotiations with Israel, and his assassination is likely to delay the already troubled talks.

Who was Ismail Haniyeh? A founding member of Hamas, Haniyeh helped lead the group through multiple wars with Israel and through elections, though it is unclear how much control he and other exiled Hamas political leaders exercised over Gazan leaders and the military, which carried out the Oct. 7 attack. Here’s more about Haniyeh and what we know about other Hamas leaders.

In Gaza: Some Palestinians said they worried that Haniyeh’s assassination could further stall cease-fire negotiations. Others said that his death was of no concern to a population that had suffered for nearly 10 months of war.

An opposition rally on Tuesday in Caracas. Alejandro Cegarra for The New York Times

A sample of Venezuelan election results suggested Maduro lost

Venezuela’s electoral body announced on Monday that President Nicolás Maduro had won another six years in office. But partial election results, provided to The Times by researchers associated with the main opposition alliance, show that he lost by more than 30 percentage points.

The researchers said their results had been collected from paper receipts produced by about 1,000 voting machines, about 3 percent of voting machines in the country, from a random sample of 1,500. The Times could not independently confirm the data, but several independent survey and election analysts reviewed the researchers’ approach and said that, if confirmed, the estimates appeared credible.

Even in the ruling party’s strongholds in previous elections, the data shows that voters shifted away from Maduro and toward Edmundo González. The results from the sample are consistent with those of an independent exit poll.

For more: The Carter Center, the only independent observer monitoring the polls, said the election did not meet international standards and violated Venezuela’s own laws.

🇺🇸 U.S. ELECTION 2024

The presidential election is less than 100 days away. This is what we’re watching.

Donald Trump’s appearance at a journalism conference in Chicago immediately turned confrontational. Akilah Townsend for The New York Times

Trump questioned Harris’s identity in a combative interview

During a tense appearance at the National Association of Black Journalists conference, Donald Trump falsely claimed that Vice President Kamala Harris used to identify as Indian and then, “all of a sudden, she made a turn, and she became a Black person.” Read more about his confrontational interview.

Here’s the latest on the election:

What do you want to know? We’re asking readers to send us their questions about the U.S. presidential election. We’ll take them to our reporters for answers. You can send us your question by filling out this form.

Stay up-to-date: Live coverage | Poll tracker | The “Run-Up” podcast | On Politics newsletter

Almost 40 police officers were injured in the violence in Southport, England. Getty Images/Getty Images

Olympics

The men’s triathlon at the Paris Games. Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

Truck drivers working for Chetak Logistics, a major Indian trucking company. Elke Scholiers for The New York Times

Much of the world has started to look to India as an alternative to China in industrial dominance. India is the only nation that’s large enough to develop a comparable supply chain, and the country has been building highways to strengthen it. But on a ride-along with a truck driver, two Times reporters saw that India had a long way to go.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, which is made possible through subscriber support. Subscribe to The New York Times.

Swimmers in the women’s 100-meter butterfly final in Paris. James Hill for The New York Times

Is the Olympic pool too shallow for speed?

The stars have shone in Olympic swimming competitions. Favorites like Ariarne Titmus and Léon Marchand have already won gold — but no one has set a world record yet.

The reason may be the depth of the pool at Paris La Défense Arena, where the races are taking place. Olympic swimming pools are usually three meters deep, like the “Water Cube” at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the site of 25 individual and team world records and 65 Olympic records. But the pool at La Défense is only 2.2 meters deep.

“When you swim, you create a wave, and the wave goes behind and goes under,” said one scientist. “And if the pool is too shallow, the wave reflects from the bottom and causes the water to be turbulent, and therefore it slows down the swimmers.”

Kelly Marshall for The New York Times.

Cook: Iwuk edesi is a one-pot dish rooted in Nigeria’s Efik and Ibibio cuisine.

Visit: China has been rolling out visa-free programs and promising to make travel easier for foreigners.

Watch: “Kleo” is an archly humorous spy series about an ex-Stasi assassin.

Read: Mai Sennaar’s debut novel, “They Dream in Gold,” is extraordinary.

Play: Spelling Bee, the Mini Crossword, Wordle and Sudoku. Find all of our games here.

That’s it for today. See you tomorrow. — Whet

We welcome your feedback. Send us your suggestions at briefing@nytimes.com.

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