Iran and Hamas Blame Israel for Killing of Ismail Haniyeh, and Vow Revenge

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Iran and ****** Blame ******* for ******** of Ismail Haniyeh, and Vow Revenge

The predawn ******** of a top ****** leader in Tehran on Wednesday left the entire Middle East on edge, bringing vows of revenge from Iran’s leaders and threatening to derail fragile negotiations for a Gaza cease-*****.

The ****** leader, Ismail Haniyeh, 62, a top negotiator in the cease-***** talks who had led the militant group’s political office in Qatar, was ******* after he and other leaders of Iranian-backed militant groups had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president.

******** leaders would not confirm or deny whether their country was behind the brazen breach of Iran’s defenses. But Iranian leaders and ****** officials immediately blamed ******* and vowed to avenge the ****** of Mr. Haniyeh, heightening fears of a broader regional war.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued an order for Iran to strike ******* directly, according to three Iranian officials briefed on the order.

And Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said in a statement on Wednesday, a day after he was sworn into office with Mr. Haniyeh seated in the front row: “We will make the occupying ********** regime regret its action. Iran will defend its sovereignty, dignity, reputation and honor.”

In recent years, ******* has carried out several high-profile assassinations in Iran, rattling the country’s leaders. In November, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of ******* told reporters that he had ordered the Mossad, *******’s foreign intelligence service, to “act against the heads of ******, wherever they are.”

Hours before the ******** of Mr. Haniyeh in the Iranian capital, ******** fighter jets had carried out a separate operation in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon’s capital, and ******* Fuad Shukr, a senior member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia that, like ******, is backed by Iran. Hezbollah has been fighting a low-level war with ******* since October and has backed ******, which led a deadly rampage on southern ******* that precipitated the war in Gaza.

Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that Mr. Shukr had been ******* in the ******** strike on a building in a densely populated Beirut suburb. Mr. Haniyeh was ******* in an ********** in an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying.

The two attacks shifted the calculus in the Middle East after ******* and ****** had appeared to be edging closer to a cease-***** in Gaza, where tens of thousands of people have been ******* over nearly 10 months of war. Negotiators had hoped that such a deal would also lead to a truce between ******* and Hezbollah, which began ******* into northern ******* in support of ******.

John F. Kirby, a White House national security spokesman, said the Biden administration believed it was “too soon to know” what effect the ************** might have on negotiations over a cease-***** and the release of hostages. He said the ******* States was still in touch with officials from Egypt and Qatar who had been acting as mediators in the talks.

Now, the focus is on how ****** and Hezbollah will respond to the attacks on their leaders, how Iran will react to a strike within its territory and whether either reaction will lead to the outbreak of a wider war.

A member of ******’s political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzouk, promised that the group would retaliate against *******, saying the ******** of Mr. Haniyeh had been “a cowardly act and will not go unpunished,” according to Al-Aqsa TV, a ******-run channel.

The Qassam Brigades, ******’s armed wing, also said in a statement that the ******** was “a dangerous event” that would have repercussions for the entire region. “The ****** has miscalculated,” the statement added.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu, who did not mention the ******** of Mr. Haniyeh in Tehran, struck a defiant tone and said ******* would not bow to external pressure to end the war in Gaza.

“Challenging days are ahead of us,” he said. “Since the ******* in Beirut, we hear threats everywhere. ******* will exact a heavy price against any aggression — from any front.”

In a statement carried by Iranian state news media, Mr. Khamenei said that avenging Mr. Haniyeh’s ****** was “our duty” because he had been ******* on Iranian soil. He promised to deliver “a severe punishment.”

He gave the order to strike back at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said the three Iranian officials, including two members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly about sensitive issues.

Mr. Khamenei also instructed leaders from the Guards Corps and the army to prepare plans for an ******* and a defense in the event that the war expanded and ******* or the ******* States struck back, the officials said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry accused the ******* States of being a “co-culprit” in the ******* on Mr. Haniyeh. But Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said during a trip to Singapore on Wednesday that the ******* States had not known about the strike before it happened.

“This is something we were not aware of or involved in,” he said in an interview with Channel News Asia in Singapore. Mr. Blinken said the Biden administration would continue to focus on trying to de-escalate the war between ******* and ****** in Gaza.

Later on Wednesday, a State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said the ******* States was “continuing to urge restraint to all parties to avoid an escalation into a wider regional conflict.”

The State Department also warned Americans on Wednesday not to travel to Lebanon, raising its travel advisory for the country to Level 4, or “do not travel” from Level 3, or “reconsider travel.”

Lebanese officials appeared increasingly concerned that the ************** of Mr. Haniyeh would complicate efforts to contain the fighting between ******* and Hezbollah along the Lebanese-******** border.

“I went to bed yesterday thinking that, OK, this can still be managed,” Lebanon’s foreign minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said in an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday. “But now when I got up this morning and read about Haniyeh, I thought, oh gosh, it’s over.”

Egypt’s foreign minister also condemned the ******** in Tehran, calling it a “dangerous escalation.”

Qatar’s prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who has been helping to mediate indirect cease-***** negotiations between ****** and *******, suggested that ******* had damaged the effort by ******** Mr. Haniyeh.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Mr. Al Thani wrote on social media. “Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life.”

Although Mr. Haniyeh was heavily involved in the cease-***** negotiations, U.S. and ******** officials said that Yahya Sinwar, ******’s leader in Gaza, had wielded a decisive veto on any cease-***** proposal.

Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan was abducted during the ******-led ******* on ******* in October, said she hoped Mr. Haniyeh’s ****** would not end the talks.

“Eliminating Haniyeh must not lead to the thwarting of the deal, passing a ****** sentence on our loved ones in captivity,” Ms. Zangauker said on social media.

In Gaza, some Palestinians said they worried that the ************** could further stall cease-***** negotiations, while others said that his ****** was of no concern, given the scale of their misery.

“He didn’t go through the suffering of displacement or hunger or feel any of these things we are feeling,” Reda Shahyon, a 42-year-old mother of two in Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, said of Mr. Haniyeh. “He was sitting in a mansion, dignified, while we were dying of hunger and thirst and humiliation.”

Analysts said ****** would look to quickly replace Mr. Haniyeh as the leader of the group’s political wing. “****** will survive,” said Joost Hiltermann, the Middle East and North ******* program director for the International Crisis Group. “They have plenty of other leaders.”

Some analysts said the ************** could provide a way out of the war by giving Mr. Netanyahu the ability claim a major victory and agree to a cease-*****. But in his speech on Wednesday, Mr. Netanyahu, who has vowed to ******** ******’s military and governing capabilities, indicated that ******* was not ready to end its offensive in Gaza.

“For months, people haven’t stopped telling me ‘end the war,’” he said. “I didn’t surrender to these voices then, and I will not now.”

Reporting was contributed by Michael Levenson, Euan Ward, Hwaida Saad, Vivian Yee, Ephrat Livni, Aaron Boxerman, Isabel Kershner, Alan Yuhas, Bilal Shbair, Johanna Reiss, Hiba Yazbek, Iyad Abuheweila, Abu Bakr Bashir, Edward Wong and Zach Montague.

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