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LAST UPDATE | 31 Jul 2024
THE UNITED STATES was “not aware of or involved in” the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran, according to its Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Washington is Israel’s key military backer but Blinken maintained today that a ceasefire remains “manifestly in the interests” of the Israeli hostages and Gazans who have been “caught in this crossfire of Hamas’s making”.
“I can’t tell you what this [assassination] means. I can tell you that the imperative of getting a ceasefire, the importance that that has for everyone, remains,” Blinken said in an interview with Channel News Asia in Singapore.
“This is something we were not aware of or involved in,” he said of the killing.
Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president when he was killed by an Israeli air strike, Hamas said Wednesday.
The dramatic killing threatens to reverberate on multiple fronts across the region.
Haniyeh’s killing came hours after Israel struck a neighbourhood in southern Beirut, killing a senior commander of Hezbollah following a weekend rocket attack on the Israel-annexed Golan Heights.
“Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new [Iranian] president,” Hamas said in a statement.
The Israeli army declined to comment on foreign media reports.
Nations across the Middle East condemned the killing of Haniyeh, warning that it could further destabilise the region and prolong the current conflicts.
New Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian vowed his country would “defend its territory” and make the attackers “regret their cowardly action”.
Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani cast doubt over the success of future mediation between Israel and Hamas following the killing of the Palestinian group’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s political leadership that included Haniyeh, has been involved in months of back-and-forth talks to mediate an end to the war in Gaza, alongside Egypt with US support.
Sheikh Mohammed, who has led Qatar’s mediation efforts, said “how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side”.
“Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side? Peace needs serious partners,” Mohammed said on X.
Speaking today during a visit to Singapore, top US diplomat Blinken said a Gaza ceasefire was also essential to prevent the conflict from spreading to the rest of the region.
“We’ve been working from day one not only to try to get to a better place in Gaza but also to prevent the conflict from spreading, whether it’s the north with Lebanon and Hezbollah, whether it’s the Red Sea with the Huthis, whether it’s Iran, Syria, Iraq, you name it,” Blinken told a forum in the city-state.
“A big key to trying to make sure that that doesn’t happen, and that we can move to a better place, is getting the ceasefire.”
Other condemnation came from Pakistan which called the killing of Haniyeh a “reckless act”, with Russia saying it was a “completely unacceptable political assassination” and Syria warning it could “set the region ablaze”.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, whose Fatah party is a rival to Hamas, said the killing of Haniyeh was a “cowardly act” and urged Palestinians to “stand firm” against Israel.
“President Mahmud Abbas of the State of Palestine strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious escalation,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.
“He urged our people and their forces to unite, remain patient, and stand firm against the Israeli occupation.”
A senior Hamas official said that the killing of the Palestinian movement’s chief Ismail Haniyeh “will not go unanswered”.
“The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh is a cowardly act and will not go unanswered,” Hamas political bureau member Musa Abu Marzuk said in a statement.
Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was “hit” and he was killed along with a bodyguard.
“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website.
The Guards said the cause of the incident was not immediately clear but it was “being investigated.”
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal.
He was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year’s parliamentary election.
Haniyeh was among the senior Israeli and Palestinian leaders which the International Criminal Court sought arrest warrants for in relation to war crimes.
Israel prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, the leader of the Gazan Al Qassem Brigades Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, better known as Mohammed Deif, and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar were also named by the ICC in May as targets.
Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and split his time between Turkey and Qatar.
He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.
Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.
He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the 7 October attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
The attack launched by Hamas on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in Gaza.
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