Tehran- Top Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed Wednesday during a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital with Israel blamed for a shock assassination that risked escalating into an all-out regional war.
Haniyeh was killed after a guided missile hit the apartment in which he was staying in Tehran, Saudi news outlet Al-Hadath reported. An Iranian source told Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen that the missile was fired from outside the country.
Israel, which kept silent about the strike, had pledged to kill Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran — and hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut.
The assassination was potentially explosive amid the region’s volatile, intertwined conflicts because of its target, its timing and the decision to carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel into direct confrontation. If Iran retaliates the risk of the United States getting sucked into another Middle East war will be real as Israel cannot effectively defend itself without US coordination and support.
In a statement Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei said revenge was “our duty” and that Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear guest in our home.”
Bitter regional rivals, Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April.
Iran retaliated in an unprecedented drone and missile strikes on Israel, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.
Haniyeh’s killing also could prompt Hamas to pull out of negotiations for a cease-fire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in Gaza, which U.S. mediators had said were making progress.
And it could inflame already rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which international diplomats were trying to contain after Israel carried out a rare strike Tuesday evening in the Lebanese capital that it said killed a top Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah has not confirmed if commander Fouad Shukur was killed. The strike killed three women and two children, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House to Haniyeh’s death. A key question was whether Israel told the U.S., its top ally, ahead of time.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that Washington must also bear responsibility for the Israeli strike that killed Hamas leader.
“This terrorist act is not only a flagrant violation of the principles and rules of international law and the United Nations Charter, but also a serious threat to regional and international peace and security,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran emphasizes the responsibility of the US government as a supporter and accomplice of the Zionist regime in the continuation of the occupation and genocide of the Palestinians, in committing this heinous act of terrorism,” the statement added.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken however denied any knowledge saying, “This is something we were not aware of or involved in.”
A top Hamas official, Khalil al-Hayya, told journalists in Iran that whoever replaces Haniyeh will “follow the same vision” regarding negotiations to end the war — and continue in the same policy of resistance against Israel.
International diplomats trying to defuse tensions were alarmed. One Western diplomat, whose country has worked to prevent an Israeli-Hezbollah escalation, said the strikes in Beirut and Tehran have “almost killed” hopes for a Gaza cease-fire and could push the Middle East into a “devastating regional war.”
The killing of Haniyeh abroad comes as Israel has not had a clear success in killing Hamas’ top leadership in Gaza.
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. Israel has targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon and Syria during the war, but going after Haniyeh in Iran was vastly more sensitive. Israel has operated there in the past: It is suspected of running a years long assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2020, a top Iranian military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while traveling in a car outside Tehran.
Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Israel will face a “harsh and painful response” from Iran and its allies around the region. An influential Iranian parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy was to hold an emergency meeting on the strike later Wednesday.
Hamas’ military wing said in a statement that Haniyeh’s assassination “takes the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions on the entire region.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said Israel will continue its devastating campaign in Gaza until Hamas is eliminated. Israel’s bombardment and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 39,300 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900.
After months of pounding, Hamas has shown its fighters can still operate in Gaza and fire volleys of rockets into Israel. But it is unclear if it has the capacity to step up attacks in retaliation over Haniyeh’s killing.
Instead, the impact may be regional. Besides a direct retaliation on Israel, Iran could work to increase attacks through its allies, a coalition of Iranian-backed groups known as the “Axis of Resistance,” including Hezbollah, Hamas, mainly Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthi rebels who control much of Yemen.
As a show of support for Hamas, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire almost daily with Israel across the Israeli-Lebanese border in a simmering but deadly conflict that has repeatedly threatened to escalate into all-out war. Yemen’s Houthis and Iraqi and Syrian militias have also fired rockets and drones at Israel and at American bases in the region.
A strike Tuesday night southwest of the Iraqi capital Baghdad killed four members of one Iranian-backed militia, Kataib Hezbollah, which has targeted U.S. bases previously. It accused the U.S. of being behind the strike.
A U.S. defense official said American forces had carried out a “defensive airstrike” against combatants who, “based on recent attacks in Iraq and Syria … posed a threat to U.S. and coalition forces.”
Who was Haniyeh?
Haniyeh, 62, was born in a refugee camp near Gaza City, and joined Hamas in the late 1980s during the First Intifada, or uprising. As Hamas grew in power, Haniyeh rose through the ranks – being appointed part of a secret “collective leadership” in 2004.
He became political chief of Hamas in 2017. The following year, he was named a “specially designated global terrorist” by the United States.
Despite that designation – and unlike Hamas’ military leadership – Haniyeh travelled globally, meeting with world figures as the political head of the organization.
During the war with Israel in Gaza he has taken a central role in hostage and ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas.
Earlier this spring, he said Hamas was willing to strike a deal – but it would require Israel withdrawing from Gaza and a guarantee to cease fighting in the enclave permanently, demands that Israel has called “unacceptable.”
Earlier, Haniyeh’s three sons, Hazem, Amir and Mohammad, were killed on April 10 this year when their car was hit by an Israeli airstrike. Hamas reported that Haniyeh also lost four of his grandchildren – three girls and a boy.
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