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Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on Monday that Iran has the “right” to punish Israel for its assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil. The United States has sent reinforcements to the Mediterranean to protect its allies and lower the risk of a wider conflict.
Israel and regional countries are awaiting already promised retaliatory measures from Iran for the killing of Hamas political leader Haniyeh in Tehran last week, hours after he attended the inauguration of the country’s new president.
Some Israeli supermarkets ran out of bottled water over the weekend, highlighting the anxiety caused by the killings, while Beirut residents felt their homes shaking on Monday as fighter jets broke the sound barrier in a routine show of force by the Israeli air force.
Gen. Michael Kurilla, the head of U.S. forces in the Middle East, was in the region over the weekend to rally a coalition of allies similar to those that helped defend Israel in April, when Iran fired hundreds of missiles and drones in Israeli retaliation for the assassination of several military personnel at the Iranian embassy in Syria.
According to the statement, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that Israel again looked to “US leadership in forming a coalition of allies and partners to defend Israel and the region from a range of air attacks.”
But Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday that the U.S. military does not believe a regional war is “imminent.”
Iran is deeply perplexed by Haniyeh’s death at a state hotel where he was a guest of the president. It claimed over the weekend that he was killed in an attack with a short-range munition carrying a warhead carrying about 7kg of explosives, but did not disclose the origins or method of the attack.
Speaking at a press conference in Tehran, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said “all evidence and indications point to the Zionist regime being behind this terrorist crime,” but Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.
Kanani said Israel bore the “first and final responsibility” for the killing and that it was “Iran’s right to act towards punishing the aggressor.”
Iran vowed to respond to the assassination, which came a day after Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr was killed in a targeted attack in Beirut that was claimed by Israel, which blamed the Lebanon-based militant group for an attack last month that killed 12 young people at a soccer stadium in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Hezbollah and Hamas, the militant groups that carried out the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, are both part of the Iran-backed alliance known as the Axis of Resistance.
Analysts believe Iran’s response to Haniyeh’s killing could be to launch a coordinated attack by its axis of powers, which also includes Houthi rebels in Yemen and militias in Iraq and Syria.
Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, suggested Monday that Israel had miscalculated in its efforts to retaliate against Haniyeh’s assassination. “Israel will realize it miscalculated when it receives a strong response,” he said in a speech, without providing details about possible Iranian action.
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi appealed for calm during a weekend visit to Tehran, but Tehran has shown no signs of backing down from its vows of revenge.
Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, reiterated his country’s “serious determination to hold Israel to account” and called for regional countries to unite against Israel, which he accuses of committing “genocide” in Gaza.
Kanani also accused the United States of complicity in Haniya’s murder, which has destabilized Iran’s theocratic leadership, and called on Washington to end its support for Israel. The United States has denied having any prior knowledge of the assassination.
“It is the duty of the United States to pressure the Zionist regime to stop the killings and crimes and to stop the shipment of weapons to this regime,” he said.
Additional reporting by Felicia Schwartz in Washington
