Was it a rocket attack, a shooting attack or an attack with a small drone loaded with explosives?
The circumstances under which Ismail Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed in northern Tehran at around 2 a.m. on Wednesday have not been disclosed in detail by the Iranian regime.
One thing is certain: Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas, is dead. He traveled to Tehran on Tuesday to attend the swearing-in of the new Iranian President Massoud Peseschkian. Haniyeh then met with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, on Tuesday.
Khamenei vowed retaliation on Wednesday. “The criminal Zionist regime has murdered our guest in our house,” he was quoted as saying on his website. “There will be a harsh punishment.” Hamas and Iran usually refer to Israel as the “Zionist regime,” which they deny the right to exist as a state.
The Israeli government has not yet commented on the death of the Hamas leader. Only two right-wing nationalist Israeli ministers reacted with satisfaction to the news of Haniyeh’s death on social media.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country did not want the war to escalate, but was prepared for all scenarios. On Tuesday evening, Israel said it had killed a Hezbollah commander in an attack in the Lebanese capital Beirut. He was said to have been responsible for shelling the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which left 12 people dead. The Shiite Hezbollah militia in Lebanon, which is financed by Iran and acts as an ally of Hamas, has been fighting with Israel for months.
The Gulf emirate of Qatar, an important mediator in the talks on a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas, questioned the already slow-moving negotiations on Wednesday. “Political murders and repeated attacks on civilians in the Gaza Strip during the talks make us ask ourselves, how can one mediate successfully when one party murders the negotiator on the other side?” Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani wrote on the X platform.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stressed that the US was neither involved in nor informed about the attack on Haniyeh.
Funeral on Friday in Qatar
Three days of national mourning were declared in Iran yesterday. A memorial service is to be held in Tehran on Thursday. Afterwards, Haniyeh’s body will be taken to the Qatari capital Doha for burial, Hamas announced.
The funeral ceremony in Qatar, where Haniyeh lived for years, is scheduled to begin with a prayer on Friday afternoon. “Arab and Islamic leaders” are expected to attend.
