Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared a day of national mourning today for the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Palestinian flags will be flown at half-mast throughout the day, the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Abbas’s political movement, Fatah, has been at odds with Hamas since 2007, when it seized control of the Gaza Strip, killing and displacing hundreds of Fatah members. Meanwhile, Iran has declared three days of national mourning for Haniyeh, according to state media. Hamas said Haniyeh’s funeral will be held in Tehran on Thursday, after which his body will be taken to Qatar’s capital Doha for prayers and burial. The ceremony will be held with full honors at Qatar’s national mosque, the country’s largest. Haniyeh will be buried in Lusail, north of Doha, in the same cemetery as Qatar’s founder Jassim bin Mohammed Al Thani. According to Channel 12, Ziad Nakhaleh, secretary general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was in the same building as Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran at the time of the latter’s assassination, but on a different floor. The channel, as reported by the Times of Israel, added that Nakhaleh was not among the targets of the attack and was not killed. We asked strategic analyst and terrorism expert Lion Udler for his opinion on what happened and what we can expect in the immediate future, not forgetting that on Tuesday evening, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck a building in southern Beirut, killing Fuad Shukr, Hezbollah’s top military commander and right-hand man to leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel holds Shukr responsible for Saturday’s deadly rocket attack on Majdal Shams.
How was the number one of the jihadist organization eliminated?
At the moment little is known about the operation to eliminate the leader of the terrorist organization Hamas, he was a guest in a facility of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards of Iran, a guesthouse where other guests who came to Tehran for the inauguration of the new President Masoud Pezeshkian held yesterday were staying, a facility that is located in the exclusive area of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards in the north of the capital Tehran, guarded by them, where there are checks and surveillance. A precision missile, which could have been launched from the ground, from the air or from the sea, outside Iran, from another country, has spent hundreds of kilometers without being intercepted by Iranian radar systems, or shot down by Iranian air defense systems, has penetrated this structure exactly the room where Ismail Haniyeh and his bodyguard were, eliminating both of them. The event occurred at 02:00 at night and at the moment there are no photos or videos from the area, probably because of the night time but also because it is a place guarded and monitored by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards and not accessible to the public.
Iran has announced revenge
Iran will certainly respond, but the terrorist organization Hamas has already reached its limits. Since Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei publicly promises a response, there will be a response.
What could happen?
The scenarios could be different, Iran would not want to go to war, not only for the elimination of a Palestinian leader, and could order its Shiite militias in Syria, Iraq, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen to attack Israel simultaneously, such an attack could also be launched by Iran, like the failed attack on the night between 13-14 April 2024.
Also abroad?
Yes, Iran could also resort to one or more attacks against Israeli interests abroad, such as embassies, Jewish facilities and so on, in fact the security of Israeli athletes in Paris has been strengthened.
Let’s go back to Hamas, what can it do?
The terrorist organization Hamas, on the other hand, has not been able to launch a single rocket against Israel, as it used to do when one of their leaders was eliminated, not because they do not want to, but because their missile force was significantly reduced during the war in Gaza. The terrorist organization has already asked its members in the Palestinian territories in Judea and Samaria to carry out terrorist activities against Israel in response to the elimination of Ismail Haniyeh, these are the last options of Hamas.
