Iran condemned Israel’s “brazen admission” of killing former Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran earlier this year on Tuesday, accusing the country of committing a “heinous crime” and blaming its missile-attack response. Saved.
“This brazen admission is the first time that the Israeli regime has openly acknowledged its responsibility for this heinous crime,” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Iravani, said in a letter addressed to the UN Secretary-General.
On Monday, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz admitted that his country was responsible for the killing, the first time an official admission had been made.
Haniyeh, who was seen as leading Hamas’s negotiation efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, was killed in a Tehran guesthouse on July 31, reportedly by an explosive device that Israeli operatives had planted weeks earlier. .
Until Monday, Israel had never acknowledged Haniyeh’s killing, but Iran and Hamas blamed the country for the death of the Hamas political leader.
In October, Iran said it fired 200 missiles at Israel, an apparent response to the killing. Israel said most of the projectiles were intercepted by either its own air defenses or allies’ air forces.
On Tuesday, Iranian UN Ambassador Iravani called Israel’s killing of Haniyeh a “heinous terrorist act”, and said Katz’s statement showed that Iran was justified in attacking Israel in retaliation.
“It also reaffirms the legality and legitimacy of Iran’s defensive response on October 1, 2024, as well as Iran’s consistent position that Israel’s occupation and terrorist regime remain the most serious threat to regional and international peace and security.”
On September 27, Israel killed Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in a Beirut bombing, followed by the assassination of Haniyeh’s successor, Yahya Sinwar, in Gaza on October 16.
Israeli officials say Sinwar masterminded the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, which sparked the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, killing thousands and reducing much of the Palestinian territory to rubble. Went.
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