Hamas leader's funeral in Tehran, Iran and its allies prepare their response

Iran and its allies prepare their response were preparing their response on Thursday against Israel after the assassination of the leader of Hamas, whose Funerals gathered thousands in Tehran, and the death of the military leader of Lebanese Hezbollah in a strike claimed by Israel l.

The remains of Ismail Haniyeh, killed Wednesday in Tehran in a strike blamed on Israel, have arrived in Qatar, where the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement, who was living in exile in the Gulf country, is to be buried Friday.

Hamas has called for a “day of anger” on Friday to mark the burial of its leader.

“Israel does not know what red lines it has crossed,” Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said Thursday, after the attack that killed the military leader of the Lebanese Islamist movement, Fouad Shokr, near Beirut on Tuesday and the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.

Israel must expect a “response” “Hezbollah's inevitable” movement, Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised speech at Fouad Shokr's funeral.

In the evening, the movement announced that it had launched dozens of rockets into northern Israel in response to an Israeli “attack” that “killed several civilians.”

Hezbollah, an ally of Hamas and supported by Iran, has been exchanging fire almost daily with the Israeli army along the Israeli-Lebanese border since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip on October 7, triggered by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian movement against Israel.

The attacks in Tehran and Beirut have revived fears of an extension of the war to the whole of the Middle East, between Israel on the one hand, and Iran and its allies on the other.

Iranians attend a funeral ceremony for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on August 1, 2024 © AFP – –

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel was at a “very high level” of preparedness for any scenario, “both defensive and offensive,” according to his office.

The Israeli military also announced the death of Hamas's armed wing leader Mohammed Deif in an airstrike on July 13 in the Gaza Strip.

– Calls for revenge –

Iran: Hamas leader killed in northern Tehran © AFP – Nalini LEPETIT-CHELLA, Omar KAMAL

Thursday, thousands of mourners, carrying portraits of Ismail Haniyeh, attended his funeral in Tehran, marked by calls for revenge.

At Tehran University, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei recited the prayer for the dead in front of the coffins of Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard, covered with the Palestinian flag. Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian and Revolutionary Guards chief Hossein Salami attended the ceremony.

The coffins were transported in a truck decorated with flowers through the streets of Tehran.

Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh attends the swearing-in ceremony of Iran's new president, at the parliament in Tehran on July 30, 2024 © AFP – –

Ismail Haniyeh, 61, was killed Wednesday by an “air projectile,” according to local media, in one of the residences reserved for veterans in northern Tehran, after attending Mr. Pezeshkian's inauguration ceremony.

The New York Times, citing five Middle Eastern officials speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a bomb planted for about two months in the residence, protected by the Revolutionary Guards and part of a large complex located in a neighborhood crested from the north of Tehran.

Israel claimed responsibility for killing Fouad Shokr, but the military said Thursday that the strike that killed him was the only one carried out that night in the Middle East.

Iran's supreme leader had threatened Israel with “severe punishment” immediately after Ismail Haniyeh's death.

“We will certainly implement the supreme leader's order,” “at the right place and at the right time,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said at the funeral.

Yemen's Houthi rebels, also allied with Hamas, promised Thursday a “military response” to the “dangerous escalation” they said Israel had provoked.

According to the New York Times, citing three unidentified Iranian officials, Ayatollah Khamenei gave the order to strike Israel directly in response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh during an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning.

– “Intense Efforts” –

US President Joe Biden was scheduled to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday, the White House announced, stressing that the United States was “involved in intense efforts” to avoid a full-scale conflict in the Middle East.

Despite calls for revenge, several analysts believed that the response from Iran and its allies should remain measured, with the desire to avoid a escalation.

Palestinians protest in the streets of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on July 31, 2024, after the announcement of the assassination of Hamas leader in Iran © AFP – Jaafar ASHTIYEH

“Iran and Hezbollah will not want to play Netanyahu's game and give him the bait or the pretexts he needs to drag the United States into a war,” said analyst Amal Saad, an expert on Hezbollah. “They will try to avoid a war while strongly deterring Israel,” she added.

Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas, which has been in power in Gaza since 2007 and which it considers a terrorist organization along with the United States and the European Union, after the October 7 attack that killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data.

Of the 251 people kidnapped at the time, 111 are still being held in Gaza, 39 of whom are dead, according to the army.

An undated photo released by the Lebanese Hezbollah press office on July 31, 2024 shows Hezbollah commander Fouad Shokr (L) and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah at an unspecified location © HEZBOLLAH MILITARY MEDIA OFFICE – –

In response, Israel launched an offensive in the Gaza Strip that has so far killed 39,480 people, according to sources data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government, which does not provide information on the number of civilians and combatants killed.

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