Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 1, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba WASHINGTON — The killing Wednes- day of top Hamas leader Ismail Hani- yeh will likely derail urgent U.S.-led talks to stop the fighting in Gaza and open the door to a potentially ferocious response from Iran. In a hit widely blamed on Israel, Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike while in Tehran for the inauguration of the Iranian president. Israel has not claimed responsibility, but few entities have the military capability to pull off what was apparently a precisely target- ed lethal attack. The timing of the assassination frus- trated the administration of U.S. Presi- dent Joe Biden, which has invested enormous capital in ceasefire talks to bring at least a temporary end to the nearly 10-month-old Gaza war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington just last week. Both Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris separately hammered him on the vital importance of agreeing to a ceasefire. For months, the U.S., Qatar and Egypt have been engaged in tense and ardu- ous negotiations with Israel and Hamas on a deal that would stop fighting and release Israeli hostages still being held by Hamas. The hostages were captured in the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks in southern Israel that killed nearly 1,200 Israelis and triggered the current conflict. Nearly 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s brutal subsequent invasion of Gaza, spurring a massive humanitarian crisis as well. Haniyeh, who was based in exile in Qatar and headed the political wing of the militant group, was key in the ceasefire negotiations. He was the Hamas figure who would sit with Qatari negotiators to receive the latest proposals and counter- proposals from Israel, then relay them to the ultimate decision-maker Yahya Sinwar, head of the Hamas military wing and believed to be in hiding in deep tunnels underneath the Gaza Strip. Then Haniyeh would relay Sin- war’s response back to negotiators. Both the Israeli side and Hamas have repeatedly put up obstacles to impede a final agreement, negotiators say. U.S. officials Wednesday were ur- gently trying to prevent talks from breaking down altogether. Though a short-term suspension seems all but certain, U.S. officials said they believe talks will eventually resume, especial- ly because there are other lower-level leaders in Hamas who want a ceasefire, despite Sinwar’s resistance. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blink- en spent much of the day in brief but pointed phone calls with Arab allies, particularly the Qataris, in an effort to get talks back on track. The Qatar- is have not yet threatened to end their mediation role, but voiced displeasure with Haniyeh’s killing. “Political assassinations & continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party as- sassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Qatari prime and foreign min- ister Mohammed bin Abdulrahmin al Thani said on X (formerly Twitter). “Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life.” Blinken said the U.S. had no role or advance knowledge of the assassina- tion. Netanyahu has long vowed to wipe out Hamas. “Israel is trying to show its own people that it’s open season on Hamas leaders,” said Daniel Byman, a veter- an researcher on the Middle East and senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Pointing to (the killing) of senior people is one way to say ‘we are winning.’” But experts say “winning” against Hamas is an elusive goal. And Hamas leaders quickly said Wednesday that no killings will stop its fight for Palestin- ian liberation. “Hamas is an idea, and the martyr- dom of its leaders does not stop this idea,” Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told the Al-Aqsa news channel. Further exacerbating regional ten- sions was Israel’s drone strike Tuesday on a high-ranking Hezbollah command- er in a residence in Beirut, killing four people — including two children — and wounding 74, Lebanese officials said. The widening cross-border violence heightened fears that the Gaza conflict will ignite a broader Mideast war. — Los Angeles Times TOP NEWS A3 THURSDAY AUGUST 1, 2024 ● ASSOCIATE EDITOR, NEWS: STACEY THIDRICKSON 204-697-7292 ● CITY.DESK@FREEPRESS.MB.CA ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM Deaths of Hamas leader in Iran, Hezbollah commander in Lebanon have region on brink of all-out war Killings risk lighting Middle East powder keg B EIRUT — Hamas’s top political leader was killed Wednesday by a predawn airstrike in the Iran- ian capital, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assas- sination that risked escalating into an all-out regional war. Iran’s supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “will exact a very heavy price from any aggression against us on any front” but did not mention the killing. “There are challen- ging days ahead,” he added. Israel had pledged to kill Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel that sparked the war in Gaza. The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president in Tehran — and hours after Israel targeted a top commander in Iran’s ally Hezbollah in the Lebanese capital, Beirut. The assassination was potentially ex- plosive amid the region’s volatile, inter- twined conflicts because of its target, its timing and the decision to carry it out in Tehran. Most dangerous was the potential to push Iran and Israel into direct confrontation if Iran retaliates. The U.S. and other nations scrambled to prevent a wider, deadlier conflict. In a statement on his official website, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said revenge was “our duty” and that Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear guest in our home.” Bitter regional rivals, Israel and Iran risked plunging into war earlier this year when Israel hit Iran’s embassy in Damascus in April. Iran retaliated and Israel countered in an unprecedented exchange of strikes on each other’s soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control. Haniyeh’s killing also could prompt Hamas to pull out of negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in Gaza, which U.S. mediators had said were making progress. And it could inflame already rising tensions between Israel and Hezbollah, which international diplomats were try- ing to contain after a weekend rocket attack that killed 12 young people in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. Israel carried out a rare strike Tues- day evening in the Lebanese capital that it said killed a top Hezbollah com- mander allegedly behind the rocket strike. Hezbollah, which denied any role in the Golan strike, confirmed the death of Fouad Shukur on Wednesday, saying he was in the building that was hit. The strike also killed three women and two children, according to the Lebanese health ministry. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said there was “no sign that an escalation is im- minent” in the Middle East and that a ceasefire agreement for Gaza was still possible. He also said the U.S. could not independently confirm reports of what occurred in Tehran. A key question is whether Israel told the U.S., its top ally, ahead of time. Asked about Haniyeh’s killing, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said, “This is something we were not aware of or involved in.” Speaking to Channel News Asia, Blinken said he would not speculate about the impact on ceasefire efforts. Khalil al-Hayya, a powerful figure within Hamas who was close to Hani- yeh, told journalists in Iran that who- ever replaces Haniyeh will “follow the same vision” regarding negotiations to end the war — and continue in the same policy of resistance against Is- rael. Hamas’s main consultative body was expected to meet soon, likely after Haniyeh’s funeral Friday in Qatar, to name a successor. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Aus- tin said he still had hopes for a diplo- matic solution on the Israeli-Lebanon border. “I don’t think that war is inevit- able,” he said. “I think there’s always room and opportunity for diplomacy, and I’d like to see parties pursue those opportunities.” But international diplomats trying to defuse tensions were alarmed. One Western diplomat, whose country has worked to prevent an Israeli-Hezbollah escalation, said the strikes in Beirut and Tehran have “almost killed” hopes for a Gaza ceasefire and could push the Middle East into a “devastating region- al war.” The diplomat spoke on condi- tion of anonymity to discuss the sensi- tive situation. Israel often refrains from com- menting on assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency or strikes on other countries. In a statement by his office, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel doesn’t want war after its strike on the Hezbollah commander in Beirut, “but we are preparing for all possibil- ities.” He did not mention the Haniyeh killing, and a U.S.-provided summary of his call with Austin didn’t mention it. The killing of Haniyeh abroad comes as Israel has not had a clear success in killing Hamas’s top leadership in Gaza, who are believed to be primarily re- sponsible for planning the Oct. 7 attack. Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. Israel has targeted Hamas figures in Lebanon and Syria during the war, but going af- ter Haniyeh in Iran was vastly more sensitive. Israel has operated there in the past: it is suspected of running a yearslong assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists. In 2020, a top Iranian military nuclear sci- entist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun while travelling by car outside Tehran. During Haniyeh’s last hours in Iran, a close ally of Hamas, he was smiling and clapping at the inauguration cere- mony of the new President Masoud Pezeshkian. Associated Press photos showed him seated alongside leaders from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad mil- itant group and Hezbollah, and Iran- ian media showed him and Pezeshkian hugging. Haniyeh had met earlier with Khamenei. Hours later, the strike hit a residence Haniyeh used in Tehran, killing him, Hamas said. One of his bodyguards was also killed, Iranian officials said. Hamas official al-Hayya later said on Iranian state television that Haniyeh was killed by a missile. Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned Israel will face a “harsh and painful response” from Iran and its al- lies around the region. An influential Iranian parliamentary committee on national security and foreign policy was to hold an emergency meeting on the strike later Wednesday. Hamas’s military wing said in a statement that Haniyeh’s assassination “takes the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions on the entire region.” Netanyahu has said Israel will con- tinue its devastating campaign in Gaza until Hamas is eliminated. On Wednes- day, he asserted that “everything” Is- rael has achieved in recent months was because it resisted pressure at home and abroad to end the war. Israel’s offensives in Gaza have killed more than 39,300 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900, accord- ing to the Gaza health ministry, whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. After months of pounding, Hamas has shown its fighters can still operate in Gaza and fire volleys of rockets into Israel. But it is unclear if it has the cap- acity to step up attacks in retaliation over Haniyeh’s killing. Besides a direct retaliation on Israel, Iran could work to increase attacks through its allies, a coalition of Iran- ian-backed groups known as the Axis of Resistance, including Hezbollah, Hamas, mainly Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria and the Houthi rebels who control much of Yemen. As a show of support for Hamas, Hezbollah has been exchanging fire almost daily with Israel across the Is- raeli-Lebanese border in a simmering but deadly conflict that has repeatedly threatened to escalate into all-out war. — The Associated Press ABBY SEWELL One target was a key ceasefire negotiator Peace process in peril after assassinations TRACY WILKINSON AND NABIH BUL SHAUL GOLAN / AFP Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had not admitted Israel’s involvement in the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as of Wednesday evening. VAHID SALEMI / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Hours after the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran Wednesday, workers there install a banner of his likeness reading in Farsi and Hebrew: ‘Wait for severe punishment.’ HEZBOLLAH MILITARY MEDIA Fouad Shukur, a Hezbollah top commander, was killed by an Israeli airstrike Tuesday. ;