(Tehran) Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed Wednesday in Tehran in a strike blamed on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist movement and Iran, which have vowed to avenge his death, raising fears of a flare-up in the region in the midst of the war in Gaza.
This assassination, as well as an Israeli strike which killed the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Fouad Chokr, near Beirut on Tuesday, raise fears of contagion of the war which has been raging for almost ten months in the Gaza Strip between Israel, sworn enemy of Iran, and Hamas, supported by Tehran.
PHOTO OLIVIA BUGAULT, AFP
Map of the Middle East showing Tehran, Iran, where Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a strike
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday night that Israel had dealt “severe blows” to its “enemies” in recent days, explicitly mentioning the killing of Fouad Shokr.
“We have eliminated the right arm of Hassan Nasrallah,” the leader of Hezbollah, “who was directly responsible for the massacre of children,” he said on television, referring to the deaths of 12 children and teenagers killed Saturday by a strike on the part of the Syrian Golan occupied and annexed by Israel. The Lebanese armed Islamist movement denied any involvement in the strike.
Israel, however, has not commented on the attack in Tehran.
Iran will hold an official funeral on Thursday for the leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will preside over a prayer ceremony for Ismail Haniyeh, whom he hailed as “an outstanding fighter of the Palestinian resistance,” before his burial on Friday in Qatar, where he lived in exile.
After the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, who was living in exile in Qatar, at the age of 61, Iranian officials unanimously pointed the finger at Israel, which was threatened with “severe punishment” by the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.
The attack “will not go unanswered,” said Moussa Abou Marzouk, a Hamas official.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday expressed alarm at the attacks in Beirut and Tehran, which “represent a dangerous escalation,” his spokesman said.
Many members of the UN Security Council, which met urgently on Wednesday at Iran’s request, expressed concern about the risks of a conflagration in the Middle East. “We fear that the region is on the brink of total war,” declared Japanese deputy ambassador Shino Mitsuko, while Slovenia described a region “in the eye of the storm.”
The United States, Israel’s main ally, said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut were “not helping” to reduce regional tensions, while saying there was no sign of an “imminent” escalation in the Middle East.
In this context, Iranian acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri spoke by telephone with his Saudi counterpart Faisal bin Farhan to discuss the “latest developments” regarding the regional situation, according to a statement from Saudi diplomacy, which did not provide further details.
“The Negotiator” Assassinated
Ismail Haniyeh attended the inauguration ceremony of Iranian reformist President Massoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on Tuesday.
According to Iranian media, he “was in one of the special residences for war veterans in northern Tehran when he was killed by an aerial projectile” at around 2 a.m. local time (6:30 p.m.) [heure de l’Est] Tuesday).
PHOTO IRANIAN PRESIDENCY, PROVIDED BY REUTERS
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (R) meets with top Palestinian leader Hamas group Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, July 30, 2024.
Ismail Haniyeh will be buried in Doha on Friday after an official funeral in Tehran on Thursday. Iran has declared three days of mourning.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said the United States was neither “informed” nor “involved” in the death of Ismail Haniyeh.
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has ruled the Gaza Strip since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organisation, along with the United States and the European Union, after the unprecedented attack carried out by the Palestinian movement on Israeli soil on 7 October.
Qatar, the main mediator in Gaza truce negotiations, has questioned whether to continue mediation. “How can mediation succeed when one side murders the other side’s negotiator,” Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said.
Antony Blinken, for his part, stressed that “the imperative of obtaining a ceasefire […] remained”.
The Palestinian Authority, China, Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Algeria, among others, condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, as did Yemen’s Houthis and Hezbollah, two movements that, along with Hamas, are part of what Iran calls the “axis of resistance” against Israel.
The Houthi rebels have announced “three days of mourning”, according to their official agency Saba.
Several hundred protesters gathered in Tehran’s Palestine Square on Wednesday, waving Palestinian flags and shouting “death to Israel, death to America,” according to AFP correspondents.
In Jordan, more than two thousand people demonstrated on Wednesday evening near the Israeli embassy in Amman to protest the assassination of Haniyeh.
In Turkey, thousands of people marched in Istanbul on Wednesday, with a large crowd gathering outside the imposing mosque in the conservative Fatih district, chanting messages hostile to Israel.
The October 7 attack by Hamas commandos in southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
Of the 251 people abducted, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom have died, according to the army.
The Israeli offensive in response in the besieged territory has so far killed 39,445 people, according to data from the Hamas-run Gaza government’s health ministry, which does not provide details on the number of civilian and combatant deaths.
Israelis have expressed concern for hostages held in Gaza following the death of Ismail Haniyeh.
“This jeopardizes the possibility of an agreement” for their release, said Anat Noy, a resident of Haifa, in the north.
Netanyahu defends war
On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu defended the war in Gaza, at a time when Israel is under intense pressure to end it.
“If we had listened to these voices, we would not have eliminated Hamas leaders and thousands of terrorists, we would not have destroyed terrorist infrastructure,” he said again without indicating to whom he was referring.
The war in Gaza has also led to an outbreak of violence between the Israeli army and Hezbollah along the Israeli-Lebanese border.
A few hours before the attack in Tehran, the Israeli army announced on Tuesday that it had “eliminated” near Beirut the Hezbollah commander responsible, according to it, for the rocket attack on Saturday in Majdal Shams, in the Golan.
A source close to Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that the body of Fouad Chokr had been found under the rubble of the targeted building in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a stronghold of the pro-Iranian movement.