Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran, Iran says
Iran's supreme leader Khamenei says avenging Haniyeh's death is 'our duty'
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a predawn airstrike in the Iranian capital Wednesday, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for theshock assassination. Iran's supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.
There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders after the group, considered a terrorist organization by many Western countries, led an Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran's new president in Tehran, and only hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran's ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital Beirut.
The dramatic assassination of Hamas's top political leader threatened to reverberate throughout the region's intertwined conflicts. Most explosively, the strike in Tehran could push Iran and Israel into direct conflict if Iran retaliates.
"We consider his revenge as our duty," Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement on his official website. He said Israel had "prepared a harsh punishment for itself" by killing "a dear guest in our home."
Asked by reporters in Manila about the Tehran strike, U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin said he had no "additional information to provide."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinkensaid the strike was "something we were not aware of or involved in," speaking from Singaporein an interview with Channel News Asia, per a transcript provided by the State Department.
The White House on Wednesday voiced concern about the increased risk of an escalation into a broader Middle East war after the assassination.
White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said, however, that Washington did not see an all-out conflict in the region as imminent or inevitable and that it was working to prevent onefrom happening.
"When you have events - dramatic events, violent events caused by whatever actor - it certainly doesn't make the task of achieving that outcome any easier," Kirby told a daily briefing in Washington.
In his first public statement since the killing of Haniyeh, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu saidIsrael "will exact a heavy price from any aggression against us on any front."
Netanyahudid not mention Haniyeh's killing or Iran, nor didthe country's defence minister.Butthe government's press office posted an image of Haniyeh on Facebook with the word "eliminated" superimposed.
Kevin Sweet, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, said Ottawa was aware of the reports of Haniyeh's death and was "closely monitoring the evolving situation."
Sweet said Ottawa has concerns about possible escalation and called on "all involved actors" to exercise restraint and to de-escalate.
The UN Security Council will hold an emergency meetingon Wednesday. Iran requested the meeting, pressing the Security Councilto address "Israeli aggression and terrorist attacks," as thestrikes "suggest an intention to escalate conflict and expand the war through the entire region."
But the UN's most powerful body issued no collective message after the meeting. Instead, the council's 15 members variously warned that the Middle East was at a precarious point, worried about potential escalation, called for restraint and diplomacyand pointed fingers along longstanding fault lines.
Khaled Meshaal, the former head of Hamas,is expected to be chosen as paramount leader of the group to replace Haniyeh. Butsenior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayyais also a possibility, as he is a favourite of Iran and its allies in the region.
Al-Hayyatold 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.
Haniyeh is the latest in a list of several Hamas leaders and operative that Israel has assassinated or tried to kill since the group was founded in 1987during the first Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Family members killed in April
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 and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other's soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.
In April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three of Haniyeh's sons and four of his grandchildren.
Iranian media showed videos of Haniyeh and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian hugging after Pezeshkian's inauguration ceremony Tuesday.
Pezeshkian vowed his country would "defend its territory" and make the attackers "regret their cowardly action."
In the West Bank, the internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Haniyeh's killing, calling it a "cowardly act and dangerous development."
Hamas's 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." It said Israel "made a miscalculation by expanding the circle of aggression."
Speaking to The Associated Press, Hamas spokesperson Sami Abu Zuhri said the loss of Haniyeh won't impact the group, saying it had emerged stronger after past crises and assassinations of its leaders.
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yehya Sinwar.
Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by several Western countries, including Canada. Hamas led the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel in which the Palestinian militant group killed 1,200 people, including several Canadians, and took some 250 others hostage, according to Israeli government tallies.
More than100 hostages were repatriated in late 2023, but about 110 hostages remain unaccounted for, with the Israeli government believing about one-third are no longer alive.
In Israel's assault on the Gaza Stripsince the October attack, more than 39,360 Palestinians have been killed and more than 90,900 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Egypt and Qatar, which have been mediating talks between Israel and Hamas,said the killing maycomplicate ceasefireefforts to end a war that has left Israel increasingly isolated internationally
Some Palestinians in Gaza agree.
"This man could have signed the prisoner exchange deal with the Israelis," said Saleh al-Shannar, who was displaced from his home in northern Gaza. "Why did they kill him? They killed peace, not Ismail Haniyeh."
Osama Abu Saad, 47, told CBC News, "God willing within a few hours, the gap that Ismail Haniyeh left will be filled by another person quickly.
"The negotiations are not for Hamas, it's for all the people," he said.
UN concerned about attack in Beirut
Haniyeh's killing couldprompt Hamas to pull out of negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in Gaza, which U.S. mediators had said were making progress.
It could also enflame already heightening tensions between Israel and Hezbollah which international diplomats were trying to contain after a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-occupiedGolan Heights at the southwest corner of Syria.
Israel carried out a rare strike in the Lebanese capital on Tuesday. The bombing killed three women, two children and a top Hezbollah commander who Israel claims was behind Saturday's rocket strike.Hezbollah has denied involvement in the rocket attack.
The body of senior Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr was found in the rubble of a building in Beirut's southern suburbs on Wednesday, two Lebanese security sources told Reuters. Hezbollah confirmed the killing of Shukr on Wednesday.
UN Secretary General General Antonio Guterres's spokesperson,Stephane Dujarric, expressed "grave concern" over the strikes in the densely populated neighbourhood.
"As we await further clarity on the circumstances, we again urge the parties to exercise maximum restraint and call on all concerned to avoid any further escalation," said Dujarric.
Lebanese ministers and lawmakers visited the scene on Wednesday. Speaking from the ruins, Hezbollah parliamentarian Ali Ammar condemned the strike on Dahiyehandthe killing of Haniyeh in Tehran.
"This enemy demands war and we are up for it,God willing, we are up for it," Ammar said.
Lebanon's cabinet held an emergency meeting on Wednesday morning to discuss the strike on Beirut and issued a statement read to reporters by Information Minister Ziad Makary.
Makary condemned the strike and said retaliation by Hezbollah was anticipated but that the government was worried the situation could "spiral."
"Lebanon does not want war," he said, adding that the government would engage in diplomatic efforts to calm tensions.
With files from CBC News and Reuters
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