Iran gives first detailed statement on Hamas leader’s killing
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A man rides his moped past a billboard bearing portraits of slain leaders, Ismail Haniyeh of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, Iranian Quds Force chief Qasem Soleimani (C), and Hezbollah senior commander Fuad Shukr on the main road near the Beirut International Airport on Aug. 3, 2024. (Ibrahim Amro/AFP/Getty Images)
Iran gives first detailed statement on Hamas leader’s killing
Washington Post-Aug3rd2024
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The statement blamed Israel for the operation, which it said was carried out with “a short-range projectile with a warhead” that weighed about 15 pounds. It “caused a strong explosion,” the statement said, without giving more details. Israeli officials have declined to comment on the attack.
Haniyeh was Hamas’s top political leader and played a key role in negotiations to end the war in Gaza. He left the enclave in 2019 to work on building Hamas’s alliances abroad, and split his time between Qatar and Turkey, with occasional visits to Iran.
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Iran’s statement Saturday appeared to try to push back against reporting by The New York Times suggesting Haniyeh was killed by a bomb snuck into the building months before the assassination took place. An operation to plant an explosive in a guesthouse used by close Iranian allies would have had to penetrate many more layers of Iranian security than an attack launched from the outside.
Hamas officials have also said that Haniyeh was killed by a rocket or missile, but have emphasized that they want to wait until Iran has completed its investigation. The group’s representative in Tehran commented on the killing Friday, saying in an interview with the London-based New Arab outlet that he was in the building at the time of the attack.
The guesthouse “was shaking so hard that he thought it was an earthquake or a thunder, but it was neither,” he said.
Here’s what to know
Israel’s military carried out a strike Saturday on a vehicle carrying five Palestinians in the north of the occupied West Bank, according to a military statement and the Palestinian news agency Wafa, which said that all five were killed. The army said the passengers were militants “who were on their way to carry out a terror attack.” The Israeli military later said it carried out another strike that killed four people it accused of shooting at security forces in the northern West Bank city of Tulkarm during an “operation” in the city.
The Al Jazeera news network dismissed as “baseless allegations” Israel’s claim that one of its journalists killed in an airstrike this week was a Hamas operative. In a joint statement Thursday, the Israeli military and intelligence service accused Ismail al-Ghoul, one of the channel’s main Arabic-language reporters, of participating in the Oct. 7 massacre. When asked for evidence by The Washington Post, the Israel Defense Forces said it had “no further comment.”
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