Iran holds funeral for assassinated Hamas leader

 

Iran held a funeral Thursday for Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, whose killing in Tehran has added to fears of a regional conflict.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attended the funeral proceedings along with Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Haniyeh was in Tehran for Pezeshkian’s swearing-in, and Hamas said Haniyeh will be buried Friday in Qatar where he was based.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not comment directly on the attack Thursday as he visited Mongolia, but he called for calm in the Middle East.

"Right now, the path that the region is on is toward more conflict, more violence, more suffering, more insecurity and it is crucial that we break the cycle and that starts with the cease-fire that we’ve been working on, which I believe is not only achievable, it has to be achieved," Blinken said.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Wednesday that Haniyeh’s assassination and Israel’s killing of a Hezbollah commander in Beirut "represent a dangerous escalation" of tensions in the region.

Guterres said in a statement that at a time when "all efforts" should be focused on reaching a cease-fire in the nearly 10-month Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and increasing humanitarian aid to famished Palestinians, instead "what we are seeing are efforts to undermine these goals."

Israel on Tuesday evening killed a top Hezbollah commander, Fouad Shukur, in an airstrike in Beirut. Israel said Shukur was responsible for a July 27 attack that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

Israel on Thursday also said it confirmed that a July 13 Israeli airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis killed the head of Hamas' military wing, Mohammed Deif.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday the Jewish state "will exact a heavy price from any aggression against us on any front" but did not mention the assassination of Haniyeh.

Ilan Berman, senior vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, told VOA that it is clear Israel was responsible for Haniyeh’s killing, and that it is part of an Israeli strategy to respond to its own failures in the October 7 attack, including a lack of deterrence against Hamas.

"It was very clear that if that was left unaddressed, other actors like Hezbollah could get similar ideas," Berman said. "So, everything that Israel has done since, both in terms of the Gaza war, but also long-range strikes on the Houthis in Yemen, attacks in Syria, attacks in Lebanon, and now the elimination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, is intended as part of a long-term strategy to rebuild Israeli deterrence."

The U.S. State Department urged Americans to avoid travel to the entirety of Lebanon, not just the Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon for which it had previously issued do-not-travel guidance. Britain and Australia similarly warned their citizens.

Khamenei vowed to retaliate for Haniyeh’s killing, saying Israel "prepared a harsh punishment for itself."

"We consider his revenge as our duty," Khamenei said in a statement on his official website, noting Haniyeh was "a dear guest in our home."

Hamas’ armed wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, also vowed to retaliate and warned of "major repercussions" for the Middle East.

Richard Goldberg, senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told VOA that because Haniyeh was killed on Iranian soil, there is a question about whether Iran will leave it to its proxies such as Hezbollah, the Yemen-based Houthis or militias in Iraq and Syria to respond, or whether Iran will act like it did in April in response to an Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Syria and launch its own attacks on Israel.

"I think we should assume at a basic level that the proxies will respond," Goldberg said. "The question is whether Iran enters the battlefield again directly."

Norman Roule, a former U.S. intelligence manager for Iran, told VOA there is a "high likelihood" Iran will respond, but that it will need to consider a type of action that shows it can hit Israel without starting a regional conflict.

"The supreme leader has stated that Iran must respond to this," Roule said. "The Revolutionary Guard, which would have been responsible along with other Iranian authorities for Ismail Haniyeh’s protection will have been humiliated and will need to restore their sense of face, and last of all, Iran’s proxies will look to Iran to demonstrate that it has a deterrent capacity."

Jason Brodsky, policy director at United Against Nuclear Iran, told VOA that in addition to a direct attack on Israel, other options for Iran would be maritime provocations and ramping up its nuclear program.

"It can also attempt terror plots throughout the region and also elsewhere abroad, targeting Israeli diplomatic facilities and installations in those countries," Brodsky said. "There are a variety of options that the Islamic Republic will try to employ. But at the same time, the Islamic Republic does not want to get involved likely in a direct war between with Israel and the United States, because in that contest, the Islamic Republic stands to lose mightily."

Haniyeh’s death comes nearly 10 months after Iran-backed Hamas launched a terror attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages.

Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has killed more than 39,400 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to the Gaza health ministry, while Israel says the death toll includes thousands of Hamas fighters it has killed.

Qatar, Egypt and the United States have been trying for months to negotiate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, but that process faced serious questions after Haniyeh’s killing.

Israeli forces continued their Gaza campaign Thursday with airstrikes in Khan Younis and ground operations in Rafah and central Gaza, the military said.