Türkiye and Pakistan announced a day of mourning on Friday in honor of Ismail Haniyeh
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday following his assassination in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that raised regional tensions as the war in Gaza dragged on.
Haniyeh was buried in Lusail, north of the capital Doha, after funeral prayers in the Gulf emirate’s largest mosque, attended by thousands of people.
Haniyeh, the political head of the Palestinian armed group, played a key role in mediated negotiations aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The burial was restricted to a small number of people, including one of Haniyeh’s daughters, Sara, who shared a video on social media showing her pouring holy water over a pebble-topped grave before lowering her head to kiss it.
“At that moment, I buried my soul in the earth and left. I left with all the pain in the world in my ribs”, she captioned the video sent on X.
Mourners earlier on Friday lined up inside the Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab mosque, where Haniyeh’s coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, was briefly carried out to the screams of angry mourners.
Others prayed on outdoor mats in temperatures that reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit).
“He was a symbol, a leader of the resistance… people are furious,” said Taher Adel, 25, a Jordanian student living in the Qatari capital.
Haniyeh’s predecessor, Khaled Meshaal, spoke at the ceremony, saying he “served his cause, his people… and never abandoned them.”
Turkey and Pakistan announced a day of mourning on Friday in honor of Haniyeh, while Hamas called for a “day of furious fury”.
Many mourners in Doha wore scarves that combined the Palestinian flag with a checkered keffiyeh pattern and the message in English: “Free Palestine.”
High-profile murders
Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn attack on his accommodation in Tehran on Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said. Haniyeh was in Iran to attend President Masoud Pezeshkian’s inauguration a day earlier.
Israel, blamed by Hamas, Iran and others for the attack, did not comment directly on the matter.
The killing of Qatar-based Haniyeh is one of several incidents since April that have sparked a rise in regional tensions during the Gaza war, which has drawn Iranian-backed armed groups into Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Iranian officials met with representatives of these groups on Wednesday to discuss the next steps, whether “a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party”, a source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement told AFP .
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met with his British counterpart John Healey on Friday and emphasized “the importance of establishing a coalition” to support “Israel’s defense against Iran and its proxies,” he said. Gallant’s office.
Military chief Herzi Halevi told troops that Israel would respond “very strongly” to any attack, an army statement said.
France urged its citizens visiting Iran to leave “due to the increased risk of a military escalation.”
During the Gaza war, Hezbollah and Israeli forces engaged in almost daily exchanges of fire, and did so again on Friday.
In Gaza, the civil defense agency reported several people killed in the north of the territory, and the Israeli military said it had killed about 30 agents near Rafah in the south.
Haniyeh’s assassination came hours after Israel attacked a southern Beirut suburb, killing Fuad Shukr, the military commander of Hezbollah, a Lebanese ally of Hamas.
Haniyeh’s deputy, Saleh al-Aruri, was killed in Beirut earlier this year.
On Thursday, Israel confirmed the death of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in a July attack in Gaza.
‘Off the table’ agreement
Israel has promised to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack that triggered the war in Gaza.
The attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas operatives also captured 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 who the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign against Hamas has killed at least 39,480 people in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-administered territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
The fighting triggered a terrible humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. On Friday, the UN Satellite Center said that nearly two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza, or 151,265 structures, were damaged or destroyed during the war.
On Thursday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh in Tehran, having previously threatened “severe punishment” for his death.
The New York Times, citing Middle Eastern officials, reported that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device planted weeks ago at a guesthouse in Tehran.
Asked about the report, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told journalists that “there was no other Israeli airstrike… in the entire Middle East” on the night of Shukr’s assassination in Lebanon.
Israel said Shukr’s killing – for which Hezbollah said retaliation was “inevitable” – was a response to rocket fire that killed 12 young men last week in the annexed Golan Heights.
Iranian news agency Fars said the US report was a “lie”, insisting that the Hamas leader was killed by a “projectile”.
Analyst Hugh Lovatt said Haniyeh’s assassination “will mean that a ceasefire agreement with Israel is now completely off the table.”
The White House said US President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and affirmed his commitment to defending Israel’s security “against all threats from Iran.”
“We have the basis for a ceasefire (in Gaza)… They should move forward now,” Biden told reporters after the call.
(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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