Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said Israel would receive “severe punishment in due time” for the assassination of the Hamas leader.
Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed earlier this week by a “short-range projectile” fired from outside his residence in Tehran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said.
In a statement released Saturday, the IRGC said that based on investigations conducted so far, the attack on Haniyeh “was carried out by firing a short-range projectile carrying approximately 7 kg (15.4 lb) of explosive materials and launched from outside the guest residence.”
He added that Israel would receive “severe punishment in due time and at the appropriate place” for Haniyeh’s assassination, which he said was “supported by the criminal government” of the United States.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its role, while the United States has said it was “not aware of or involved” in Haniyeh’s killing, which threatens to plunge the Middle East into a new conflict as part of Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian leader and his bodyguard were killed in an Iranian government guesthouse in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday.
Haniyeh had traveled to the Iranian capital to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
According to security analyst HA Hellyer, the narrative Iran adopts to describe the method of assassinating Ismail Haniyeh will shape its escalation against Israel.
“It is not yet clear how he was assassinated and any conclusion on that will have serious implications for the type of escalation that follows and the narrative that is produced,” Hellyer told Tel Aviv Tribune, noting that there are two competing versions. Citing unnamed officials, including Middle Eastern and Iranian sources, several Western media outlets had previously reported that Haniyeh was killed by a bomb planted in his Tehran home several months ago.
“There is a difference between those two types of scenarios,” Hellyer said, adding that a missile would suggest that “a security breach may have occurred in terms of knowing exactly where to strike, but it’s a different security breach than if a bomb had been smuggled into Iran.”
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Resul Sardar says that while there is a “war on narratives” over how Haniyeh was assassinated, any version of events represents a failure of Iran’s security services.
“It is quite clear that Iran has been outgunned in terms of electronic warfare and in terms of intercepted signals and communications,” he said.
Ibrahim Fraihat, an associate professor at the Doha Institute, told Tel Aviv Tribune that Iran’s response would likely not mirror its reaction to the Israeli airstrike on its embassy in Damascus last April, when Tehran coordinated its response with several parties, including the United States.
“The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh violated Iranian sovereignty,” Fraihat said. “Iran should therefore respond in a manner equivalent to the attack it suffered.”
On Friday, thousands attended Haniyeh’s funeral prayer at a mosque in the Qatari capital, Doha, where the Hamas leader lived with members of the group’s political bureau.
His assassination comes hours after Hezbollah leader Fouad Shoukr was killed in an Israeli airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut, the capital of Lebanon. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, five civilians – three women and two children – also died in the attack.
Since the start of the war in Gaza, the Tehran-backed group has exchanged almost daily fire with Israeli forces, claiming that it was targeting military positions across the border.
Iran said Saturday it expected Hezbollah to strike deeper into Israel and no longer limit itself to military targets after Israel killed Hezbollah’s military commander.
Israel said Shukr was responsible for rocket attacks that killed 12 youths in the annexed Golan Heights and that he had directed Hezbollah attacks on Israel.
Israel’s war on Gaza has killed nearly 40,000 people and displaced nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing what UN experts call a famine in the enclave. The war began in response to a Hamas attack on Israeli villages and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and about 250 captured.
In recent months, Hamas and Israel have engaged in ceasefire negotiations aimed at ending the killings in Gaza and freeing Israeli captives in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
