Netanyahu and Biden to hold call on Thursday, White House says

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Joe Biden will speak by phone on Thursday, the White House said, following the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the Iranian capital, earlier this week.

The assassination drew threats of revenge on Israel and fueled concern that the conflict in Gaza was turning into a wider Middle East war. Iran and Hamas have blamed Haniyeh's killing on Israel, which has neither denied nor confirmed a role in the assassination.

Israel did, however, confirm that it killed a senior commander of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement in Beirut on Tuesday.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan offered little insight into how Haniyeh's death could affect the Gaza war.

"It is too soon to tell what the impact of his death will have on negotiations (for a ceasefire deal in Gaza), and so I'm not going to speculate on that, especially in light of the broader dynamics and set of events unfolding in the region right now," Sullivan said.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal, Ismail Shakil, Stephanie Kelly and Rami Ayyub; Editing by Leslie Adler)

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