Ismail Haniyeh, political head of Hamas, has been assassinated in Iran. [Picture: Vahid Salemi / AP file]
The political head of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, has been assassinated. His bodyguard was also killed in the early morning attack at his residence in Tehran, Iran. He was there to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
In a statement on Wednesday, the resistance group said “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran” was responsible for his death. There was no comment from Israel at the time of publication.
Haniyeh was the exiled political chief of the militant group and had spent much of his time in recent years in Qatar and Turkey. Considered a pragmatist, he had acted as a negotiator in the ceasefire talks during the Israel-Gaza war, liaised with Hamas’s main ally, Iran, and met with the Turkish president, reported The Guardian.
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Escalation fears
Meanwhile, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, responding to questions about a potential boilover in the region, maintained that there was room for diplomacy to prevail.
“I don’t think war is inevitable. I maintain that. I think there’s always room and opportunities for diplomacy,” he said. He added that the US would “work hard to make sure that we’re doing things to help take the temperature down”.
But Abas Aslani, a fellow at the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies in Tehran, told Al Jazeera that an “escalation seems inevitable” at this point. This could possibly mean the potential for any ceasefire in Gaza might diminish.
“We might be saying goodbye for now to the ceasefire because this can escalate into a regional war. The Israeli prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] is trying to do everything in order to prolong his political life. He wants to continue the war [in Gaza], and I think this is meant to not only impact the processes in Tehran and the region, but also in Washington as well,” he said.
Since 7 October 2023, Israel killed no fewer than 39 400 people and injured 90 996 others as it flattened the Gaza Strip. A litany of alleged war crimes are piling up against Netanyahu’s government, sparking global outrage.
