According to investigations, the bomb was “fired from outside the guest accommodation with a warhead weighing around seven kilograms,” said a statement published on Saturday by the official news agency IRNA. This caused a “strong explosion.” Iran and Hamas blame Israel for the killing of Haniyeh and are threatening retaliation. Israel has not yet commented on the allegations.
Tel Aviv and Haifa in sight
An article published on Saturday in the ultra-conservative Iranian newspaper Kayhan said that the Israeli coastal cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa on the Mediterranean were “among the targets” of an Iranian retaliatory attack. The retaliatory strikes would be “more diverse, more scattered and impossible to intercept.” There would be “painful human losses.”
In the statement now published, the Revolutionary Guards also stressed that Haniyeh’s death would be avenged and that Israel would receive “a severe punishment in due time, place and manner.”
Dozens of arrests
According to a media report, more than two dozen people have been arrested in Iran following the fatal attack on Haniyeh. The New York Times reported, citing two Iranians familiar with the investigation, that those arrested included high-ranking intelligence officers, military officials and employees of a military-run guesthouse in Tehran where Haniyeh was attacked. The reports of the arrest of Iranian security forces for alleged collaboration with Israeli intelligence and involvement in the attack have not yet been officially confirmed.
The US newspaper quoted its informants as saying that the arrests at the highest level were a reaction to a major and shameful security breach that made Haniyeh’s murder possible. The Hamas foreign chief was in Tehran for the swearing-in of the new Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and was accommodated in a highly secure Iranian government guest house in the north of the capital.
Explosives in guest house
As the British daily newspaper “The Telegraph” reported, citing two Iranian officials, the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad hired two Iranian security agents for the deadly attack on Haniyeh. The original plan was to kill Haniyeh in May when he attended the funeral of former President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash. The plan was called off because of the large crowd and the high probability of failure.
Instead, the two agents were ordered by the Mossad to place explosive devices in three rooms in the guesthouse of the Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s elite military force, it was said. Surveillance camera footage shows the agents entering and leaving several rooms within a few minutes, the two officials told the newspaper.
Bomb detonated from abroad
The agents are said to have subsequently fled abroad, but were in contact with a source on the ground. At 2 a.m. on Wednesday, they then remotely detonated the explosives from abroad in the room where Haniyeh was staying. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal also reported, citing informants, that Haniyeh had been killed by a bomb. The explosive device was said to have been placed in the guest house two months before Haniyeh’s trip to Tehran, the New York Times reported, citing seven officials from the Middle East region, including two Iranians, and a US government official.
The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Hossein Salami, threatened Israel with a broad counterattack by allied militias in the region in response to the killing of Haniyeh and Shukr. “The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime (Israel) and its supporters must reckon with the holy wrath of the resistance groups,” said General Salami, according to the Revolutionary Guards’ website. In a letter to Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, the commander spoke of harsh and bloody revenge. Israel will have to pay a high price, wrote Salami.
“Attack in depth”
After Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia will, according to its ally Iran, also attack Israel “in depth.” Hezbollah will “not limit its attacks in Israel to military targets,” the Iranian mission to the UN announced on Saturday, according to the state-run Iranian news agency IRNA. With the killing of Shukr on Tuesday, Israel has crossed a line, it said.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah also announced his militia’s reaction to Shukr’s death. The Hezbollah commander was killed in an Israeli attack in a suburb of the capital Beirut on Tuesday. According to Israel, Shukr was the highest-ranking military commander of the Lebanese militia and was responsible for the rocket attack on a village in the Israeli-annexed Syrian Golan Heights a week ago, in which at least twelve children and young people were killed.
Direct attack in retaliation
One day after Shukr, Hamas leader Haniyeh was killed in Tehran on Wednesday. Iran said it ordered a direct attack on its arch-enemy in retaliation. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the threats from Iran and its allies by saying Israel was prepared for any “aggression”. US President Joe Biden assured Israel of Washington’s support “against all threats from Iran”.
Tehran denies Israel the right to exist and supports both the radical Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip and its allied Islamist militias such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi in Yemen.