Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, prayed over Haniyeh’s coffin in a ceremony that — in another sign of the weight Tehran has given to the Palestinian cause and the constellation of anti-Israeli militant groups it backs across the region — was also joined by the country’s president and parliament speaker.
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official who, like Haniyeh, was visiting the Iranian capital for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian at the time of the attack, said that Hamas and its fellow militant groups would remain united against Israel.
“The path of resistance will continue and Haniyeh’s blood will not be [spilled] in vain,” he told the crowd.
Hundreds of fighters, dignitaries and supporters also gathered in a southern suburb of Beirut for the funeral of Fuad Shukr, a senior commander for the Lebanese militant group, Hezbollah, which is also backed by Iran.
Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah, addressing the crowd by video link, said his group’s decades-long conflict with Israel had reached a turning point and promised a consequential response to the killing of Shukr, who died in an airstrike Tuesday that Israel touted as proof of its military might.
“We have entered a new stage different from the one before,” Nasrallah said, adding that Israel would have to “wait for the anger of the honorable people in this nation, the revenge of the honorable people in this nation, for all this blood.”
Nasrallah’s comments suggested that Hezbollah, with a massive arsenal believed to include more than 100,000 rockets and missiles, would seek to exceed the scale of its daily military exchanges with Israel.
On previous occasions when senior operatives have been killed, the group has fired massive rocket barrages at Israel, but all Nasrallah would say Thursday is that retaliation was certain.
“We are looking for a real response, not a nominal one,” he said. “If this response will come in parts, or simultaneously, Israel does not know.”
Israel has described the strike on Shukr, which also killed at least six other people, as its answer to an attack that killed a group of children and teenagers on a soccer field in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights days earlier. Hezbollah has denied any role in that strike.
Threats against Israel mounted as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, without mentioning Haniyeh, heralded Israel’s recent military actions against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.
“We will exact a very high price for any act of aggression against us from any quarter whatsoever,” he said following a briefing Thursday by the Israeli military’s Home Front Command.
Also Thursday, the Israel Defense Forces announced that it had killed Hamas’s military commander, Mohammed Deif, ending weeks of speculation about whether its July 13 strike in the Gaza Strip had achieved its objective. The strike targeting Deif deepened global criticism of Israel’s Gaza operation after it killed at least 90 people, according to Palestinian authorities, in an area designated by Israel as a safe zone for civilians.
Netanyahu said the killing of Deif, whom Israel described as mastermind of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks into Israel, “underscores a simple principle which we have set: Whoever harms us, we will harm them.”
Together, the recent operations underscored Israel’s willingness and ability to target adversaries beyond its borders, including deep in hostile territory — and suggested that Netanyahu’s government, like the leaders of Iran and its militant allies, is unlikely to heed calls from the United States and other outside powers to put the ongoing cycle of violence to rest.
They also reflect the reality of a widening regional conflict as Netanyahu vows to push ahead with its war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, now approaching the one-year mark. The war, and its heavy civilian toll, has isolated Israel globally and created deep strains in Israel’s dealings with its chief ally, the United States.
The Biden administration, while promising to aid Israel’s defense, has urged Netanyahu to wrap up the Gaza campaign and do what is required to reach a deal with Hamas that would usher in a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of remaining hostages taken on Oct. 7.
Analysts have suggested the killing of Haniyeh, who served as a top negotiator for Hamas, could jeopardize negotiations to stop the fighting in Gaza.
Speaking during a visit to Mongolia, Secretary of State Antony Blinken issued a demand to “all parties” in the Gaza conflict to stop taking escalatory actions, a message clearly aimed at Israel a day after Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran.
Blinken did not call out Israel by name, nor did he acknowledge that Israel had killed Haniyeh, but it still amounted to the angriest denunciation of Israeli actions by a senior U.S. leader after the dual killings of major Israeli foes.
Asked whether the United States had issued Israel a “blank check” to conduct operations in the Middle East, Blinken — who has typically been upbeat about his efforts to halt the fighting — offered an unusually glum assessment of the situation.
“Right now, the path that the region is on is for more conflicts, more violence, more suffering, more insecurity, and it is crucial that we break the cycle. And that starts with a cease-fire,” Blinken told reporters in the Mongolian capital.
“To get there, it also first requires all parties to stop taking any escalatory actions. It also requires them to find reasons to come to an agreement, not to look for reasons to delay or say no to the agreement,” Blinken said.
“And it’s urgent that all parties make the right choices in the days ahead. Because those choices are the difference between staying on this path of violence, of insecurity, of suffering, or moving to something very different and much better for all parties concerned.”
Blinken, who has been touring Asia for more than a week, said that he had spent the past 24 hours on the phone with Middle Eastern leaders to try to salvage the cease-fire efforts.
The Biden administration has faced intense domestic criticism, including from within President Biden’s own Democratic Party, for its support of Israel, even as the Gaza war has generated intense friction between Washington and Tel Aviv.
Netanyahu’s visit to Washington last week, where he gave a fiery address to the U.S. Congress, highlighted those strains, and the politically charged nature of America’s role in arming Israel in its war in Gaza. In addition to Biden, Netanyahu also met with Republican nominee, Donald Trump.
The United States sought to distance itself from Haniyeh’s killing. Blinken said Wednesday that the Biden administration had received no forewarning of the Haniyeh attack.
In Lebanon, Khadija Fuad Shukr, one of slain Hezbollah commander’s seven children, predicted that her father’s death would backfire for Israel.
“On the contrary, the danger will increase,” she said, speaking at the funeral Thursday, vowing that she and her siblings would continue their fight against Israel.
The United States had offered a $5 million bounty for information about Shukr, whom the U.S. government accused of playing a key part in Hezbollah’s 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps Barracks in Beirut, which killed more than 200 American servicemembers.
“I tell the Americans, you were badly hurt by my father, and you will be hurt a lot more,” she said.
George reported from Dubai and Chamaa reported from Beirut. Kareem Fahim in Beirut, Michael Birnbaum in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia and Lior Soroka in Tel Aviv contributed to this report.
