Hamas political
leader Ismail Haniyeh in 2017. The leader of the Palestinian militant
group was killed in Iran, according to reports. Photograph: Mohammed Salem/ReutersIran vows revenge after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran
Death came hours after Israel said it killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut, fuelling fears of regional conflict.
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, was killed by a strike in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning, only hours after Israel said it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
The dual assassinations are heavy blows to Hamas
and Hezbollah, but also raise the stakes for Iran, which backs both
groups and vowed revenge. They will fuel growing fears that the war in
Gaza could escalate into a broader regional conflict.
A
senior Hamas official described Haniyeh’s killing as a “cowardly act
that will not go unpunished”. Mediators Qatar and Egypt warned it would
set back talks on a ceasefire and a deal to release hostages held in Gaza.
Haniyeh was targeted by an airstrike at a “residence in Tehran”, Hamas
said, after he travelled to the Iranian capital for the inauguration of
the country’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
said that because the attack took place in Tehran, “we consider his
revenge as our duty”. Pezeshkian said his country would defend its
territorial integrity and honour, and make the “terrorist occupiers
regret their cowardly action”.
The Israeli
government officially declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death, but the
strike was widely acknowledged as an Israeli operation both inside the
country and beyond.
Israel vowed to kill all
Hamas leaders after the 7 October attacks, and its intelligence services
have a history of carrying out covert killings inside Iran, mostly
targeting scientists working on the country’s nuclear programme.
The
retired general Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israel’s Military
Intelligence Directorate, described the attacks on Wednesday night as
“two quality operations of Israel defence forces against two top
terrorists, one in Beirut and one in Tehran”.
The
US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, speaking after the assassinations,
said the Biden administration was “doing things to take the temperature
down” but would come to Israel’s defence if it were attacked.
US
officials have led a global months-long diplomatic effort to prevent
the war in Gaza escalating into a broader regional conflict, but they
now face an even steeper challenge.
Austin,
who is visiting the Philippines, said he believed a wider conflagration
could be avoided, despite the threat of revenge. “I don’t think war is
inevitable. I maintain that,” he told reporters.
The
senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk told a Hamas-run TV channel
that Haniyeh’s killing was a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”.
Sami Abu Zuhri, another official, told Reuters it was “a grave
escalation” that would not achieve its goals.
Hamas
has survived past assassinations of its top leaders, including
Haniyeh’s mentor Ahmed Yassin in 2004, and Haniyeh did not command
operations on the ground in Gaza after leaving for exile in 2019.
Hamas
fighters inside Gaza are led by Yahya Sinwar, thought to be the
mastermind of the 7 October attacks in which about 1,200 people were
killed and 250 were taken hostage.
The Biden
administration has been pushing hard in recent months for at least a
temporary ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, where the
territory’s health authorities says nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been
killed and more than 90,000 wounded since 8 October.
The
US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said on Wednesday that
Washington had not been aware of or involved in Haniyeh’s assassination,
and that a ceasefire deal for Gaza was still vital.
But
negotiations are likely to be frozen after the attacks of recent days,
and particularly after the killing of Haniyeh, who played a key role in
talks from his Doha base. Qatar described the attack as a “dangerous
escalation” that put ceasefire talks in jeopardy.
“How
can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the
other side?” the country’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin
Abdulrahman Al Thani, wrote on X, joining a regional chorus of
condemnation.
Russia and Turkey condemned
Haniyeh’s assassination, with Moscow describing it as a “completely
unacceptable political killing”, the Tass news agency reported.
Haniyeh’s
funeral will be held in Iran on Thursday, and the country has declared
three days of mourning. His body will then be flown to Doha for burial.
Haniyeh’s death came hours after Israel claimed it had killed Hezbollah’s top military commander,
Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb launched in
retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at the weekend.
Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that Shukur had been killed in the attack.
Lebanon’s
foreign minister said the strike was a shock after assurances from
Israel’s allies that the country planned a “limited response” that
“would not produce a war”.
“That’s what we’re
afraid of,” Abdallah Bou Habib told the Guardian. “We did not expect to
be hit in Beirut. We thought these were red lines that the Israelis
would respect.”
The Palestinian president,
Mahmoud Abbas, condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, calling it a “cowardly
act and dangerous development”.
Streets in
Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is based, were empty after
Palestinian national and Islamic factions called for a general strike
and mass demonstrations.
Haniyeh had
repeatedly urged Palestinians to be “steadfast” after Israel killed his
mentor and members of his family. His own death is likely to elicit a
similar response from other Hamas leaders.
After
an airstrike killed three of his sons and four grandchildren in April
he insisted in an interview with Al Jazeera that his personal loss would
not prompt Hamas to shift its position in negotiations.
News
of the assassinations was largely greeted with delight in Israel, as
part completion of a promise to hunt down the men responsible for the 7
October atrocity.
Social media was filled with
triumphant memes. The cabinet minister Amichai Chikli shared footage of
Haniyeh apparently nodding to chants of “death to Israel”, with the
caption “Careful what you wish for” in a post on X.
It
was also seen as revindication for the security forces after the
failures of 7 October. “It really revives a little bit of the lost
dignity of the intelligence community of Israel,” said Tamir Hayman, a
retired general who like Yadlin served as head of defence intelligence.
But
the tactical impact of two complex strikes in the heart of regional
capitals would not change Israel’s overall position, 10 months into its
war in Gaza, he said.
“I’m not neglecting the
importance of this, but in terms of the overall strategic posture of
Israel and the complicated situation we are facing to stop the war and
achieve all our goals, it really does not change a lot,” he said.
He
called on the government to use its military advantage now to push for a
ceasefire deal and the return of hostages, and then turn its attention
to securing the northern border. “If we continue [relying] on those very
good tactical achievements, we are basically in the same place we have
been yesterday,” he said.
[SOURCE]
