Death of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh threatens to engulf Middle East in wider conflict

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has warned of ‘severe punishment’ for Israel over Haniyeh’s death.

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Palestinian group Hamas’ top leader Ismail Haniyeh met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran on July 30. Photo: Handout via Reuters

Published: 5:13pm, 31 Jul 2024Updated: 8:30pm, 31 Jul 2024

The Middle East is on a knife’s edge following Israel’s reported assassination of Palestinian Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran as the war in Gaza continues to rage.

Haniyeh’s death on Wednesday came shortly after the Israeli air force said it had killed Fuad Shukr, the military chief of Lebanese Hezbollah, in a targeted strike on Beirut. Hezbollah and Hamas are both members of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance” against Israel and the US in the Middle East, along with Yemen’s Houthi movement and several Iraqi militias.

Together, the two assassinations “kill chances for a ceasefire in Gaza and instead push the Middle East closer to a catastrophic regional war … all in the vacuum of lame duck government in the US”, said Vali Nasr, a professor of international affairs and Middle East studies at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

Hamas and its Iranian ally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, announced that Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed around 2am local time (7am Hong Kong time) in a precision “Israeli strike” on accommodation provided to him during his visit to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.

“The timing, the inauguration of a new president, dares Iran to retaliate which forces [a] decision and course of action that Tehran likely didn’t anticipate or want,” Nasr said.

Palestinian group Hamas’ top leader Ismail Haniyeh attends Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony in Tehran on July 30. Photo: West Asia News Agency via Reuters

Israel has not claimed responsibility for Haniyeh’s assassination, but several of its ministers and opposition politicians issued statements celebrating the killing of the Hamas political chief as a victory for the Israeli security forces.