Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh

Iranians attend the funeral procession of assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Aug. 1, 2024. (West Asia News Agency via Reuters)
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Updated 01 August 2024
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Calls for revenge at Iran funeral for Hamas chief Haniyeh

  • Islamic republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Hamas leader

TEHRAN: Iran held funeral processions on Thursday with calls for revenge after the killing in Tehran of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a strike blamed on Israel.

The Islamic republic’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh ahead of his burial in Qatar, having earlier threatened a “harsh punishment” for his killing.

In Tehran’s city center, thousands of mourning crowds carrying posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags gathered for the ceremony at Tehran University before a procession, according to an AFP correspondent.

Haniyeh’s death was announced the day before by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, who said he and his bodyguard were killed in a strike on their accommodation in the Iranian capital at 2:00 a.m. (2230 GMT) on Wednesday.

It came just hours after Israel targeted and killed top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in a retaliatory strike on the Lebanese capital Beirut, sending fears of a wider regional war soaring in fallout from the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.

Israel has declined to comment on the Tehran strike.

Iran’s state TV showed the coffins of Haniyeh and his bodyguards covered in Palestinian flags during the ceremony attended by senior Iranian officials.

President Masoud Pezeshkian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami, were present. Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian’s inauguration ceremony on Tuesday.

Senior Hamas figure Khalil Al-Hayya, the movement’s foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that “Ismail Haniyeh’s slogan, ‘We will not recognize Israel,’ will remain an immortal slogan” and “we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine.”

Iran’s conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran “will certainly carry out the supreme leader’s order (to avenge Haniyeh.)”

“It is our duty to respond at the right time and in the right place,” he said in a speech with crowds chanting “Death to Israel, Death to America!”

The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-bedecked truck through leafy streets where cooling water mists sprayed the flag-waving crowds.

Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran’s political affairs, said after Haniyeh’s death that it was “our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

The Islamic republic has not yet officially published any information on the exact location of the strike.

Pezeshkian said Wednesday that “the Zionists (Israel) will soon see the consequences of their cowardly and terrorist act.”

The international community, however, called for de-escalation and a focus on securing a ceasefire in Gaza — which Haniyeh had, according to a Hamas official previously, accused Israel of obstructing.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the strikes in Tehran and Beirut represented a “dangerous escalation.”

All efforts, he said, should be “leading to a ceasefire” in Gaza and the release of hostages taken during Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which began nearly 10 months of war.

The prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh’s killing had thrown the whole mediation process into doubt.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said in a post on social media site X.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday called on “all parties” in the Middle East to “stop escalatory actions.”

Earlier he said a ceasefire in Gaza was still the “imperative,” though White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the twin killings of Haniyeh and Shukr “don’t help” regional tensions.

While Iran has blamed the attack on its arch-foe, Israel has declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death. It did, however, claim the killing of Shukr, whom it blamed for a weekend rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights.

The killings come with regional tensions already inflamed by the war in Gaza, a conflict that has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.

One of those groups, Yemen’s Houthi rebels, “declared three days of mourning” for Haniyeh, with political leader Mahdi Al-Mashat expressing “condolences to the Palestinian people and Hamas” over his killing, according to the group’s Saba news agency.

The United Nations Security Council also convened an emergency meeting Wednesday at Iran’s request to discuss the strike.

Hamas has for months been indirectly negotiating a truce and hostage-prisoner exchange deal with Israel, in talks facilitated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States.

Analysts told AFP that Haniyeh was a moderating influence within the Islamist group, and that while he would be replaced, the dynamics within Hamas could change.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack that ignited war in Gaza.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.

Concern grew among Israelis over the fate of those still held in Gaza.

Haniyeh’s killing “was a mistake as it threatens the possibility of having a hostage deal,” said Anat Noy, a resident of the coastal city of Haifa.

Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,445 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.


Turkiye sacks 3 pro-Kurdish mayors for ‘terror ties’

Updated 6 sec ago
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Turkiye sacks 3 pro-Kurdish mayors for ‘terror ties’

ISTANBUL: Turkiye on Monday sacked three mayors in the Kurdish-majority southeast on alleged “terrorism” charges, despite Ankara’s apparent desire to seek a rapprochement with the Kurdish community.

In a sweep, the mayors of the cities of Mardin and Batman as well as the Halfeti district in Sanliurfa province were all removed and replaced with government-appointed trustees, the Interior Ministry said.

All three belong to DEM, the main pro-Kurdish party, and were elected in March’s local elections, when opposition candidates won in numerous towns and cities, including Istanbul.

Among those removed were Ahmet Turk, Mardin’s 82-year- old mayor, along with Batman mayor Gulistan Sonuk and Mehmet Karayilan in Halfeti.

The ministry outlined a string of allegations against them, frommembershipinanarmed group to disseminating propaganda for the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known as PKK.

Since 1984, the PKK has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state in which more than 40,000 people have died. It is blacklisted as a “terror” group by Turkiye and its Western allies.

Kurds make up around 20 percent of Turkiye’s overall population.

DEM swiftly denounced the moveas“amajorattackonthe Kurdish people’s right to vote and be elected.”


Red Cross launches international emergency appeal urging donors to provide resources for Lebanon

Updated 1 min 20 sec ago
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Red Cross launches international emergency appeal urging donors to provide resources for Lebanon

BEIRUT: The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies on Tuesday launched an international emergency appeal asking donors to provide resources for Lebanon during the Israel-Hezbollah war.
IFRC also called on all parties to protect paramedics in the conflict that has left thousands of people dead and wounded, many of them over the past six weeks.
Jagan Chapagain, the secretary-general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told The Associated Press in Beirut that “needs are just growing so fast.” He met with officials and toured shelters housing people displaced by the conflict.
The IFRC said its emergency appeal for 100 million Swiss Francs ($115.8 million) is aimed at helping Lebanon and the Lebanese Red Cross through the ongoing conflict.

Jagan Chapagain, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, in Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, Nov. 5, 2024. (AP)

The 13-month war between Israel and Hezbollah has killed more than 3,000 people, wounded over 13,000 in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of the displaced are staying in shelters around the small nation that is passing through a historic economic crisis.
In northern Israel, 68 soldiers and 41 civilians have been killed since October 2023, according to the prime minister’s office. More than 60,000 people have been displaced from their homes.
The conflict dramatically escalated on Sept. 23, with intense Israeli airstrikes on south and east Lebanon as well as Beirut’s southern suburbs, leaving hundreds dead and leading to the displacement of nearly 1.2 million people.
Chapagain said people staying in community centers around the country need hygiene kits, non-food items, blankets and heaters as winter approaches. He added that even if the hostilities stop, it will take time for things to go back to normal and that is one of the reasons why the IFRC’s emergency appeal goes for two years.
“The global community needs to come together to find a political solution to the challenges this region has been facing for decades,” Chapagain said.
He said that more than 30 staff and volunteers globally have already been killed this year and dozens injured adding that many other organizations have also lost members of their staff.
“This is something unheard of many years ago,” he said about the 30 deaths, adding that among the countries where paramedics suffered most are Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and Sudan.
In Lebanon, 17 members of the Lebanese Red Cross have been wounded since the conflict began while carrying out their rescue duties in different parts of Lebanon. Three of the 17 paramedics were wounded twice, according to IFRC.
“The Red Cross and Red Crescent emblems are protected,” said Chapagain.


Israeli military says sirens sounded in Eilat

Updated 14 min 22 sec ago
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Israeli military says sirens sounded in Eilat

  • The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said in a statement that it targeted a “vital target” in Eilat

BAGHDAD: Israeli military said on Tuesday that sirens were sounded in the Red Sea port city of Eilat.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq said in a statement that it targeted a “vital target” in Eilat by drones.
The Iraqi pro-Iran group has been launching attacks on Israel since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza.


UK humanitarian agency report exposes systematic life-threatening conditions for Palestinians in Gaza

Updated 05 November 2024
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UK humanitarian agency report exposes systematic life-threatening conditions for Palestinians in Gaza

  • Findings underscore severe challenges facing Palestinian civilians during Israel’s war with Hamas

LONDON: A report released on Tuesday from Action for Humanity International, one of the UK’s leading humanitarian agencies operating in Gaza, reveals the conditions faced by internally displaced people after Israel’s displacement orders to Palestinian civilians.

The report claims that these orders, along with conditions in designated “humanitarian zones,” are creating life-threatening environments that amount to “systematic erasure.”

The findings underscore the severe challenges facing Palestinian civilians during Israel’s war with Hamas.

According to the survey, 15 percent of respondents were unable to evacuate due to disability or caregiving responsibilities, a reality compounded by the fact that 35 percent of people received less than an hour’s notice of evacuation orders.

The survey also found that 98 percent of respondents had been displaced several times, with nearly a quarter having been displaced 10 or more times in the past year.

In humanitarian zones conditions are reportedly dire.

According to the report, 73 percent of respondents described them as “poor” or “very poor,” with four out of five lacking sufficient access to food, and two-thirds unable to obtain clean drinking water. Additionally, 80 percent of respondents reported no access to adequate medical care.

Charles Lawley, director of communications and advocacy at AFH, criticized the treatment of Gaza’s civilians, saying that, in his view, the situation in Gaza amounted to “erasure in plain sight.”

“This report shows that Gaza is being erased in plain sight,” he said. “The so-called ‘evacuation orders’ — and I hesitate to call them that, as that is the language used by the Israeli military and implies it is doing the people of Gaza a favor by giving them a warning before bombing their homes — inflict terrors, are ambiguous and difficult to comply with, on the occasions they are given.”

Lawley further condemned the conditions in the so-called humanitarian zones.

“The conditions are not fit for humans ... with such damage to infrastructure, the bombing of Gaza, even with so-called evacuation orders, puts people who cannot afford the transport to escape and those with caregiving or physical barriers to escape — such as pregnant women, the elderly, and people with disabilities — at a heightened risk of being killed, as escaping is even more difficult for them.”

In a strong rebuke of the ongoing military action, Lawley argued that the pattern of bombardment, ground incursions, and deprivation of basic resources suggested a coordinated strategy that “aligns with acts of extermination and genocide.”

He further suggested that recent reports indicating Israeli government intentions to annex Gaza raised additional concerns, noting that “these plans ... appear designed to inflict conditions of life aimed at the physical destruction of the group, in whole or in part ... as a strategic tool in broader aims for territorial annexation.”

The full report is available to read here


Israel’s Netanyahu dismisses defense minister in surprise announcement

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant attend a press conference on October 28, 2023
Updated 05 November 2024
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Israel’s Netanyahu dismisses defense minister in surprise announcement

  • Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds throughout the war in Gaza

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday dismissed his popular defense minister, Yoav Gallant, in a surprise announcement that came as the country is embroiled in wars on multiple fronts across the region.
Netanyahu and Gallant have repeatedly been at odds over the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu had avoided firing his rival. Netanyahu cited “significant gaps” and a “crisis of trust” between the men in his Tuesday evening announcement.
“In the midst of a war, more than ever, full trust is required between the prime minister and defense minister,” Netanyahu said. “Unfortunately, although in the first months of the campaign there was such trust and there was very fruitful work, during the last months this trust cracked between me and the defense minister.”
In the early days of the war, Israel’s leadership presented a unified front as it responded to Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack. But as the war dragged on and spread to Lebanon, key policy differences have emerged. While Netanyahu has called for continued military pressure on Hamas, Gallant had taken a more pragmatic approach, saying that military force has created the necessary conditions for a diplomatic deal that could bring home hostages held by the militant group.
Gallant, a former general who has gained public respect with a gruff, no-nonsense personality, said in a statement: “The security of the state of Israel always was, and will always remain, my life’s mission.”
Gallant has worn a simple, black buttoned shirt throughout the war in a sign of sorrow over the Oct. 7 attack and developed a strong relationship with his US counterpart, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
A previous attempt by Netanyahu to fire Gallant in March 2023 sparked widespread street protests against Netanyahu. He also flirted with the idea of dismissing Gallant over the summer but held off until Tuesday’s announcement.
Gallant will be replaced by Foreign Minister Israel Katz, a Netanyahu loyalist and veteran Cabinet minister who was a junior officer in the military. Gideon Saar, a former Netanyahu rival who recently rejoined the government, will take the foreign affairs post.
Netanyahu has a long history of neutralizing his rivals. In his statement, he claimed he had made “many attempts” to bridge the gaps with Gallant.
“But they kept getting wider. They also came to the knowledge of the public in an unacceptable way, and worse than that, they came to the knowledge of the enemy — our enemies enjoyed it and derived a lot of benefit from it,” he said.