TEHRAN: Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an air strike in Iran onWednesday, where he was attending the swearing-in of the new president.
Haniyeh’s killing blamed on Israel has stunned the international community. Israel has not commented on the death but many countries have warned it could help turn the Gaza war into a regional conflict.
Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian said in a statement: “The Zionists will soon see the consequences of their cowardly and terrorist act.” “Such measures are a sign that the policies of the Zionist regime have reached a dead end,” he added. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened “harsh punishment” for Haniyeh’s killing.
Israel declined to comment on the Tehran strike, which came after it struck a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut on Tuesday, targeting a senior commander of the Lebanese militant group it blamed for a deadly weekend rocket strike on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.
The Gulf emirate of Qatar, which has been spearheading efforts with Egypt and the United States to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, said the killing of Haniyeh, Hamas’s lead negotiator, threw the whole process into doubt.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was hit and he was killed along with a bodyguard. Iranian media said the 2:00 am (2230 GMT) strike targeted “the special residences for war veterans in north Tehran” where Haniyeh was staying.
Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday’s swearing-in of Pezeshkian.The government, following the news of the killing, declared three days of national mourning.
An “official and public” funeral ceremony for Haniyeh will be held in Tehran on Thursday before his body is flown to Qatar, his base in recent years, for burial on Friday.Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas condemned Haniyeh’s killing as a “cowardly act”. Palestinian factions in the Israeli-occupied West Bank called for a general strike and protest marches across the territory.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation forits October 7 attacks on Israel, which sparked the war in Gaza.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a ceasefire in Gaza was still “imperative”. Speaking at a forum in Singapore, Blinken refused to comment directly on the killing of Haniyeh, but said reaching a ceasefire in Gaza “is the enduring imperative”.
Speaking in a interview with Channel News Asia, Blinken said the United States was “not aware of or involved in” the strike that killed Haniyeh.
Egyptian, Qatari and US mediators had met with Israeli negotiators in Rome on Sunday in their latest push for a deal as international pressure for a ceasefire mounts. Concern grew among Israelis over the fate of the dozens of hostages still held captive in Gaza.
Haniyeh’s killing “was a mistake as it threatens the possibility of having a hostage deal,” said Anat Noy, a resident of the coastal city of Haifa.
The Tehran strike which killed Haniyeh came hours after Israel said it had killed senior Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in a strike on the group’s stronghold in Beirut’s southern suburbs.
Hezbollah said on Wednesday that Shukr was inside the building hit by Israel but that his fate remained unknown. Chairing a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati warned: “The strike on the southern suburbs is a strike on... efforts for calm.”
Meanwhile, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned what he called the “perfidious assassination” of his “brother” Haniyeh.
“It is a completely unacceptable political assassination, and this will lead to a further escalation of tensions,” Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov told the state-run RIA Novosti news agency.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian said: “We are highly concerned about the incident and firmly oppose and condemn the assassination.”
The killing reverberated across the Middle East. Egypt’s foreign ministry said that Israel’s “dangerous escalation” in recent days “risks igniting a confrontation in the region that could yield to dire security consequences”. Iraq’s foreign ministry also called Haniyeh’s killing “a threat to security and stability in the region”. Oman also condemned the action.
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