U.S. Environmental Protection AgencyIran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a “short-range projectile” fired from outside his hotel in Tehran.
The paramilitary group said the projectile weighed about 7 kilograms (16 pounds) and caused a “violent explosion” that killed Haniyeh and his bodyguard last Wednesday. The Hamas leader is visiting the Iranian capital to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps accused Israel of designing and carrying out the operation with U.S. support. Israel has yet to comment on Haniyeh’s death.
The IRGC’s account was inconsistent with Western media reports that Israeli agents planted explosives in the hotel.
The failure surrounding Haniyeh’s death, especially on a day when security was tight, has caused embarrassment for Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Dozens of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers were arrested or fired in the days after Haniyeh’s death, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The newspaper said the group’s intelligence agency had taken over the investigation. The report added that staff at the Chania hotel had been interrogated and their mobile phones and other electronics confiscated.
Meanwhile, the security details of Iranian politicians have also been overhauled. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh on Thursday but was removed by his security detail shortly after the ceremony.
Ahead of the IRGC’s statement on Saturday, Britain’s Daily Telegraph said Haniyeh was killed by a bomb planted in his room by agents of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency.
The newspaper quoted Iranian officials as saying that two Mossad agents entered the hotel and placed explosives in three rooms. Iranians who have seen CCTV footage of the agents said the pair then left the country before detonating the bomb from outside Iran.
The New York Times also reported that Haniya was killed by explosives detonated in the room, saying that the explosives may have been planted two months ago. The BBC has not been able to confirm these claims.
But Hamas officials told the BBC earlier this week that Haniyeh had stayed at the same hotel before. Since taking over as head of Iran’s Politburo in 2017, he has visited Iran 15 times.
The newspaper reports, if true, would be an even bigger failure for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has long controlled the country’s internal security. Experts also said it would highlight the extent to which Mossad operates in Iran with impunity.
Regardless of the manner of Haniyeh’s death, Iran and Hamas have vowed revenge.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Saturday that Israel would be “severely punished at the appropriate time, place and manner”.
Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia and political group backed by Iran, has also vowed revenge. One of their top commanders, Fouad Shuk, was killed in an Israeli attack last Tuesday.
Iran launched 170 drones, 30 cruise missiles and at least 110 missiles at Israel after Israel killed IRGC Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi in an operation in Damascus earlier this year. ballistic missile.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Israelis that “challenging days are ahead… We hear threats from all sides. We are prepared for any scenario”.
His ministers were sent home this weekend with satellite phones in case the country’s communications infrastructure was attacked.
Despite government warnings, the mood on Tel Aviv’s waterfront seemed relaxed, with bronzed bodies lounging under beach umbrellas.
But few doubt that the Middle East is dangerously close to all-out war.
Israel is on high alert and many international airlines have suspended flights to the country.
The Pentagon said the United States is also deploying more warships and fighter jets to the Middle East to help protect Israel from possible attacks by Iran and its proxies.
British Foreign Secretary David Lamy warned that the risk was rising that “the situation on the ground could deteriorate rapidly”.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-run government media office said an Israeli airstrike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza’s Shehradwan neighborhood killed at least 10 people.
Israel said an airstrike on Saturday killed a Hamas commander and four senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters in the occupied West Bank.
The Israeli military said the airstrike hit a vehicle as the men prepared to launch an attack.
Elsewhere, Israeli officials – including the heads of Mossad and internal security agency Shin Bet – have arrived in Cairo for new ceasefire talks.
They will meet with Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamal and other senior military officials in a bid to salvage a possible truce. But U.S. President Joe Biden acknowledged on Friday that Haniyeh’s death undermined the verdict.
Haniyeh was actively involved in the negotiations, and Biden said his death “would not help” efforts to end the 10-month conflict.
The war began in October when Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking another 251 people back to Gaza as hostages.
The attack triggered a massive Israeli military response that killed at least 39,550 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry.
