US, Europe strive to mitigate; Iran’s response after Haniyeh

US and EU diplomats are urgently meeting to prevent a major conflict in the Middle East following the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, says the Financial Times. The EU Deputy Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Enrique Mora, held discussions with Tehran officials on Wednesday. At the same time, Brett McGurk, White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, was in talks in Saudi Arabia.

The goal of these discussions is to convince Tehran not to retaliate against Israel, or, at least, to respond in a controlled manner. According to the media outlets, a Western diplomat mentioned that, since Wednesday night, everyone had been urging Tehran to avoid retaliation and to keep things under control.

On Wednesday, Hamas announced that Haniyeh had been killed in an airstrike on his home in Tehran after attending the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Hamas has accused Israel and the US of being responsible for Haniyeh’s death and said they would retaliate.

Iran accuses us of Haniyeh killing

In a letter to the UN Security Council, shared with Russian media outlet Sputnik, the Iranian mission to the UN claimed the Israeli rocket strike that killed Haniyeh had been carried out with the authorization and intelligence support of the US. This attack could not have happened without US compliance, it stressed.

The letter also emphasised that the killing, which targeted a high-ranking official guest, was a “serious violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity” in a clear breach of international law. The Iranian mission urged the Security Council to take immediate steps to hold Israel accountable for its aggressive actions, suggesting “possible sanctions and other measures”.

However, on Wednesday, US State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel had stated that the US was not involved in Israel’s recent operation in Lebanon.

Who was Ismail Haniyeh​?

Haniyeh was born in a refugee camp near Gaza City in 1962 and joined Hamas in the late-1980s during the First Intifada. At 62 years old, he served as the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority from 2006 to 2007, following Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian legislative elections. After Hamas formed a government in the Gaza Strip amid a conflict with the rival Fatah faction, Haniyeh became the leader of the de facto government in Gaza from 2007 to 2014.

In 2017, he succeeded Khaled Meshaal as the chief of Hamas’s political bureau. Haniyeh left Gaza in December 2019 and lived in Turkey and Qatar, where he worked to strengthen his role as Hamas’s international representative. He notably attended the funeral of Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian commander killed by a US drone strike in 2020, and the inauguration of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in 2021.

In April this year, Israeli airstrikes killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren. Despite these losses, Haniyeh said the ceasefire or hostage negotiations would carry on.

(The author of this article is a Defence, Aerospace & Political Analyst based in Bengaluru. He is also Director of ADD Engineering Components, India, Pvt. Ltd, a subsidiary of ADD Engineering GmbH, Germany. You can reach him at: girishlinganna@gmail.com)

(Disclaimer: The views expressed above are the author's own and do not reflect those of DNA)