New Delhi: A short-range projectile with a warhead weighing about 7 kg was used in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political chief of Hamas, said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Saturday.
“According to the investigations and investigators, this terrorist operation was carried out by firing a short-range projectile with a warhead of about 7 kilograms, followed with a strong explosion, from outside the area of the guests’ accommodation,” said the IRGC in a statement, originally published in Persian by Iranian local media and translated into English by ThePrint, using translation software.
The statement added, “The adventurous and terrorist Zionist regime [Israel] will resolutely receive the response of this crime which will be severe [taken] at the appropriate time, place and manner.”
The IRGC’s statement is different from an investigation published by Western media that indicated a bomb was smuggled into Haniyeh’s guest house months before his stay there last week.
Ismail Haniyeh, who arrived in Tehran early Tuesday morning to attend the swearing-in of the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, shared a stage with union Minister Nitin Gadkari, who was India’s representative for the ceremony.
He later met with the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khameini and then visited an exhibition before retiring to his room. In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in an attack.
On Saturday, the IRGC accused Israel of being behind the assassination, supported by the American government. Tel Aviv is yet to claim any credit for the killing of Hamas’s political chief. Haniyeh was buried in a Muslim ceremony in Doha, Qatar Friday.
In an interview with The New Arab, a London-based Arabic daily, Khaled Qaddoumi, Hamas’s representative in Tehran, refuted the claims by The New York Times of a bomb blast being behind the killing of Haniyeh Friday.
“At 1.37 am, an explosion rocked the building. Qaddoumi recounted that he saw thick smoke and later discovered that Haniyeh had been killed. He believes the attack was carried out by an aerial projectile, possibly a missile or shell, which caused significant damage to the building,” reports The New Arab.
Haniyeh, who was appointed the chief of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017, had been living permanently in Doha, Qatar, since 2019. He was known for travelling across the region to build support for the organisation. He was also a former Prime Minister of Palestine between 2006 and 2007.
Designated as a terrorist by the US in 2018, Haniyeh, was the chief negotiator for Hamas in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations to bring a halt to the conflict in Gaza, which has been ongoing since October 2023.
West Asia on edge, Indian advisories
The incident has set the region on edge, as Israel is expecting retaliation from Iran or the organisations it supports across the region, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and the Houthis in Yemen.
The Indian government has urged all citizens against travelling to Lebanon, and for those present in the West Asian country to leave in an advisory published Thursday. Similarly, New Delhi’s embassy in Israel issued an advisory for Indian citizens to “stay vigilant” and avoid “unnecessary travel within the country.”
Air India also announced suspension of flights to Tel Aviv until 8 August, 2024.
With Haniyeh’s killing, there are also worries that the negotiations for a ceasefire and return of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas have been sabotaged. On 7 October 2023, the militant outfit in control of the Gaza strip launched an attack on Israel, killing close to 1,150 people and capturing at least 250 hostages.
In retaliation, Tel Aviv launched an invasion of Gaza, which is still ongoing. At least 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, while senior leaders of Hamas’s leadership have been targeted. Apart from Haniyeh, Mohammed Deif, the deputy commander of Hamas’s military wing was confirmed to have been killed earlier this week by Tel Aviv.
Since the conflict in Gaza began, Hezbollah, another Tehran-backed outfit located in Southern Lebanon has regularly been exchanging artillery fire with Israel in support of Hamas. Last Saturday, a rocket exploded on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights in the North East of the country, leading to the death of 12 people, primarily children.
In retaliation Tel Aviv launched a strike at Southern Beirut, killing Fuad Shukr, a senior commander of Hezbollah, further raising fears of an escalation between Israel and Lebanese outfits.
Both the killing of Shukr and Haniyeh’s assassination have led to Tehran vowing revenge, while Western leaders have scrambled to prevent serious escalation that could lead to an all-out war breaking out in the region.
Earlier in April, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and rockets at Israel directly, for the first time since the Iranian Revolution of 1979, after it accused Israel of striking its diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria, killing two senior IRGC commanders. At the time, Tehran said that its retaliation under the United Nations Charter was finished.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray)
Also read: Haniyeh killing ‘disaster’ for Tehran, could impair Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks