Iran Vows To Retaliate Against Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh For His Death In Tehran

Iran Vows To Retaliate Against Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh For His Death In Tehran

Iran has threatened to act reprisal for the killing of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, by means of an airstrike in Tehran, in what can be seen as the bringing of war to the Middle East.

Haniyeh was visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian. The assassination occurred hours after Israel claimed to have killed a commander for Iran ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut in retaliation for a deadly strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Iran‘s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, promised revenge for the killing of Haniyeh, saying that with the killing of “a dear guest in our home,” Israel “prepared a harsh punishment for itself.”.

“We deem his revenge to be our responsibility,” he said in a statement.

Since 7 October, when the militant group attacked southern Israel, the Israeli government has been in search of Hamas leaders, killing more than 1,130 people and abducting 251 others as hostages.

Last month, Haniyeh described how his three sons and three grandchildren had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, where Israel’s war against Hamas has displaced more than 90 per cent of the population and killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Hamas-run strip.

It has already vowed to avenge Haniyeh’s death, terming it a “cowardly act” that shall not go unpunished. Its military wing issued a statement saying that the killing of Haniyeh would “take the battle to new dimensions and have major repercussions.” Iran, promising retaliation, declared three days of national mourning, saying the US shares the responsibility for the act because of its support to Israel.

“The iron fist that will strike them, is the one that will bring peace and a bit of comfort and strengthen our ability to live in peace,” said in a social media post, Israel’s heritage minister Amichai Eliyahu.

He said that, in so doing, Iran would then defend its territorial integrity and dignity, making them “regret their cowardly act.” The attack is going to be seen as an embarrassment for the government and Iran’s security services.

The bitter regional rivals almost plunged into war earlier this year, when in April, Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus. Iran retaliated, and Israel counter-attacked in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other’s soil. The international effort managed to contain that cycle before it was beyond their control.

Hamas and Iran have no interest in any regional wars, but there is a crime involved and that must be cleared, as reported by Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ deputy chief in Gaza.

The Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, added his voice to those people of Israel involved in the killing of the Hamas leader as various Palestinian factions called for mass demonstrations in response to his assassination on Iranian soil. Condemnation of the killing came very strongly from nations such as Russia, China, and Qatar.

Haniyeh’s death came hours after Israel claimed to have “eliminated” one of the top leaders of the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in an airstrike in Beirut, which it described as revenge for a rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights that killed a dozen children.

Israel’s State Level blamed Hezbollah for Saturday’s attack, while the militants have reportedly denied any responsibility. Iran warned against attacking Lebanon to avoid an escalation of the conflict.

Haniyeh, 61, was the hard-talking face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy and formerly served as prime minister of Gaza. In 2019, he left the strip to operate between Turkey and the capital of Qatar, Doha, escaping the battered strip’s travel curbs, which gave him the means to act as a negotiator in the ceasefire talks or to talk directly with officials in Iran.

“Haniyeh was “leading the political battle for Hamas with Arab governments”, Adeeb Ziadeh, a specialist in Palestinian affairs, at Qatar University told AFP. “He is the political and diplomatic front of Hamas,” Mr Ziadeh told Reuters.

Haniyeh’s most likely replacement is Khaled Meshaal, his deputy-in-exile who lives in Qatar, Hamas officials told Reuters. Under Meshaal, Hamas has become a more important player in the Middle East conflict, and it had to do with its popularly and regional. position, the analysts said. Meshaal was saved from an assassination attempt by Netanyahu in Jordan in 1997, and he had to escape the country and rush to Israel.

The assassination could jeopardize US President Joe Biden’s efforts to secure a deal between Hamas and Israel concerning a temporary ceasefire and the release of hostages.

Qatar and Egypt, which have been mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a possible ceasefire, said on Wednesday that the killing of Haniyeh could scupper efforts to secure a truce in Gaza.

“Political assassination and the continuous targeting of civilians in Gaza while the negotiations are taking place leaves us with the questions: How can mediation succeed if one side assassinates the negotiator from the other side?”, Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani wrote on X.

Later, however, Sheikh Mohammed did have a call with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and discussed work on continuing a ceasefire. He is also the foreign minister.

Mr Blinken sidestepped a question on Haniyeh’s killing at an event in Singapore, reiterating his line that a ceasefire deal in Gaza was the key to avoiding wider regional escalation. He told Channel News Asia the US had neither been aware nor involved in the killing.

The Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that an Israeli escalation policy in the past two days undermined efforts for an initiative trying to broker an end in the fighting in the Gaza area.

“The coincidence of this regional escalation with the lack of progress in the Gaza ceasefire negotiations increases the complexity of the situation and indicates that there is no political will in Israel for calming it down,” said.

It added, “It undercuts the strenuous efforts made by Egypt and its partners to stop the war in the Gaza Strip and end human suffering of the Palestinian people.”

Britain’s foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned of the destabilising effect of conflict in the Middle East amid a visit to Qatar alongside the UK’s defence secretary, John Healey.

“Escalation and destabilization are in no one’s interests,” Mr Lammy said during the visit. “It is absolutely vital that we engage closely with partners like Qatar, who plays the key mediating role between the different parties to end this devastating war in Gaza.”