Israel Confirms It Killed Hamas Leader Haniyeh In Iran

Israel's defence minister has admitted that Israel killed Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. Israel has also vowed to target the heads of the Iran-backed Houthi movement.

People gather as the coffins of Hamas late political leader Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard are carried on the back of a truck during a funeral procession in Tehran, Iran, 01 August 2024.

Source : PTI

For the first time, Israel's defence minister has admitted that Israel killed Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July. Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran's capital, on July 31,  and the attack was widely attributed to Israel. However, earlier, there was no direct claim of responsibility by Israel for the killing of Haniyeh at the time.

Israel Katz, while honoring defence military personnel on Monday said, "These days, when the Houthi terrorist organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them at the beginning of my remarks: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded Iran's defense systems and damaged the production systems, we have toppled the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which remains the last to stand."

He added that “Israel will "damage their strategic infrastructure, and we will behead their leaders – just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon – we will do it in Hodeidah and Sana'a.”

In another news, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said some progress had been made towards agreeing a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas, but a timeline for when it will be reached was not specified. A senior Palestinian official told the BBC that talks between Hamas and Israel were 90% complete. However, key issues remained.

To enforce a naval blockade and to show solidarity with the Palestinians in Israel's, the Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attributed to attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year.

After Haniyeh's killing, Hamas named Yahya Sinwar as its leader in Gaza. Later, Sinawar was killed by the Israeli military in October. In September, the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated in Beirut.