Top Muslim diplomats said on Wednesday that Israel was “fully responsible” for the “heinous” killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and warned it could lead to instability in the region.
The announcement came at the end of an extraordinary meeting of the Saudi Arabia-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called in part by Iran, which has vowed to avenge the attack on Haniyeh, heightening tensions across the Middle East.
Israel has not commented on the death of Haniyeh, who lived in Qatar and was a key player in talks to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
After foreign ministers gathered at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) headquarters in the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah, the organisation issued a statement saying it “holds the illegal occupying power Israel fully responsible for this heinous attack”, which it described as a “serious violation” of Iran’s sovereignty.
Saudi Arabia’s deputy foreign minister, who had not commented on the attack until Wednesday, described it in similar terms, according to a Saudi government statement.
During the opening ceremony, Gambia’s Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara, the current OIC chair, said Haniyeh’s death threatened to deepen and widen the ongoing bloodshed in the Middle East.
“This heinous act will further escalate existing tensions, potentially leading to a wider conflict that could involve the entire region,” Tangara said.
He said Haniyeh’s killing “will not suppress the Palestinian movement but will only strengthen it and underscore the urgent need for justice and human rights for the Palestinian people.”
“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of nation states are fundamental principles of the international order.
“Respecting these principles has serious implications, and violating them brings equally serious consequences.”
– Fear of increase –
Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri reiterated Tehran’s view that it must respond.
“At the moment, in the absence of any appropriate action by the (UN) Security Council against the Israeli regime’s aggressions and violations, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to exercise its inherent right to legitimate defense against this regime’s aggressions,” he said.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller on Wednesday expressed hope that “all parties with ties to Iran will put pressure on Iran, just as we are putting pressure on the Israeli government, not to take any steps that would escalate the conflict.”
Miller said the United States is in touch with many of the countries attending the OIC meeting and believes there is “broad consensus” that “escalating tensions will only exacerbate the problems facing the region.”
Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah has also vowed to avenge the killing of Haniyeh and that of its military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli attack in Beirut hours earlier.
– ‘Condemnation and condemnation’ –
Wednesday’s meeting was not the first time the bloc has spoken out on the war, which began with Hamas attacks on southern Israel on October 7.
The operation killed 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on Israeli official figures.
Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, 39 of whom the Israeli military says are dead.
At least 39,677 people have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, though the ministry did not give a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
In addition to issuing regular statements condemning civilian deaths in Gaza, OIC leaders gathered in November for a summit with their Arab League counterparts to denounce the Israeli military’s “barbaric” actions in Gaza.
The strong statement masked divisions within the group, as some countries threatened to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as cut economic and diplomatic ties.
Diplomats at the time said that countries that have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, were against the idea.
Saudi political analyst Mohammed bin Saleh al-Harbi told AFP that “we cannot expect more than condemnation and denunciation” at Wednesday’s OIC meeting.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
