Beirut — Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran after attending the inauguration of the nation’s new president, Iran and the militant group stated early Wednesday.
Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike for the loss of life of the head of the Palestinian militant group’s political bureau. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard stated it was investigating the assault and did not say the way it occurred.
Israel has vowed to kill Haniyeh and different leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 folks and noticed some 250 others taken hostage.
Iran’s Presidency / WANA (West Asia Information Company) / Handout through REUTERS
An Israeli navy spokesman did not instantly reply to a request for remark. Israel usually would not touch upon assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence company.
Hamas stated Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran” after he attended the swearing-in of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday together with different Hamas officers and officers from Hezbollah and allied teams.
“Hamas declares to the nice Palestinian folks and the folks of the Arab and Islamic nations and all of the free folks of the world, brother chief Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” Hamas stated in its terse assertion.
In one other assertion, the group quoted Haniyeh as saying the Palestinian trigger has “prices” and “we’re prepared for these prices: martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, and for the sake of God Almighty, and for the sake of the dignity of this nation.”
Hamas officers did not instantly reply to requests for additional remark.
Iranian media quoted Pezeshkian as saying Iran will “defend its territorial integrity, dignity, honor, and satisfaction, and can make the terrorist occupiers remorse their cowardly act,” the Reuters information company reported.
Haniyeh hadn’t been in Gaza in years and spent most of his time in Qatar, the place Hamas has its major political workplace outdoors of Gaza.
Iranian Presidency Workplace through AP
A few of Hamas’ most senior leaders are nonetheless believed to be in Gaza and stay on Israel’s wished record. Topping that record is Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ prime chief within the Gaza Strip, who masterminded the Oct. 7 assault.
Within the West Financial institution, the internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Haniyeh’s killing, calling it a “cowardly act and harmful growth.” Political factions within the occupied territory known as for strikes to protest the killing.
In April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and 4 of his grandchildren.
In an interview with the Al Jazeera satellite tv for pc channel on the time, Haniyeh stated the killings would not strain Hamas into softening its positions amid ongoing cease-fire negotiations with Israel.
The killing of Haniyeh comes after Israel carried out a rare strike on Beirut that it stated killed Fouad Shukr, a prime Hezbollah navy commander. The strike additionally killed a minimum of one girl and two youngsters and wounded dozens of individuals.
Hezbollah stated Wednesday it was nonetheless looking for Shukr’s physique. The Iran-backed group’s first remark after the strike concentrating on Shukr got here hours after his loss of life Tuesday and adopted the strike that killed Haniyeh.
Hezbollah stated Haniyeh’s loss of life would make the area’s resistance extra decided in going through Israel, based on Reuters.
The strike got here amid escalating hostilities with the Lebanese militant group. The U.S. additionally blames Shukr for planning and launching the lethal 1983 Marine bombing within the Lebanese capital.
In the meantime, Iraq’s Well-liked Mobilization Forces, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias, stated a strike Tuesday evening on a base southwest of Baghdad killed 4 members of the Kataib Hezbollah militia.
The group accused the US of being behind the strike. Kataib Hezbollah, together with among the different militias, has in current months carried out attacks against bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for Washington’s assist for Israel within the battle in Gaza. U.S. officers did not instantly remark.
There was no quick response from the White Home to the killing of Haniyeh.
The obvious assassination comes at a precarious time, because the Biden administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to a minimum of a short lived cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
U.S. Protection Secretary Lloyd Austin informed reporters throughout a go to to the Philippines Wednesday he did not assume a wider war in the Middle East was inevitable and Washington was attempting to chill rising tensions within the area.
His remarks come after Israel’s declare that it had killed Shukr.
Requested additionally if he may verify that Israel was behind the srike that killed Haniyeh, Austin stated: “I haven’t got something for you on that.”
Qatar known as Haniyeh’s killing a “heinous crime” and warned it may result in a “harmful escalation” of tensions within the area, Agence France-Presse stories.
Qatar has been serving as an middleman within the crease-fire talks.
Russia slammed Haniyeh’s killing, calling it an “unacceptable political assassination,” AFP stated.
China condemned the Haniyeh “assassination” and voiced concern it may end in additional instability within the area, Reuters reported.
CIA Director Invoice Burns was in Rome on Sunday to fulfill with senior Israel, Qatari and Egyptian officers within the newest spherical of talks. Individually, Brett McGurk, the White Home Coordinator for the Center East and North Africa, is within the area for talks with U.S. companions.
Israel is suspected of operating a yearslong assassination marketing campaign concentrating on Iranian nuclear scientists and others related to its atomic program. In 2020, a prime Iranian navy nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun whereas touring in a automobile outdoors Tehran.
In Israel’s battle in opposition to Hamas because the October assault, greater than 39,360 Palestinians have been killed and greater than 90,900 wounded, based on the Hamas-run Gaza Well being Ministry, whose rely would not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
