Iran, allies ready Israel response as funerals held for militant leaders

TEHRAN:  Iran and its regional allies vowed retaliation on Thursday (Aug 1)  for the deaths of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, raising regional tensions  as mourners filled Tehran’s city centre calling for revenge.
A public funeral was held for Hamas’ political chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital where he was killed early on Wednesday in an attack on which Israel has not commented.
Haniyeh’s body was then flown to Qatar, where he had resided and where he is to be laid to rest on Friday when his group called for a “day of furious rage” in the Palestinian territories and across the region.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, addressing the funeral of the Lebanese group’s top military commander, said Israel and “those who are behind it must await our inevitable response” to Fuad Shukr’s and Haniyeh’s killings within hours of each other.
“You do not know what red lines you crossed,” Nasrallah said, addressing Israel, a day after Shukr was killed in a strike in south Beirut.
Israel, which said Shukr’s assassination was a response to deadly rocket fire last week on the annexed Golan Heights, warned its adversaries on Thursday they would “pay a very high price” for any “aggression”.
“Israel is at a very high level of preparation for any scenario, both defensive and offensive,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Those who attack us, we will attack in return.”
Crowds, including women shrouded in black, carried posters of Haniyeh and Palestinian flags in a procession and ceremony that began at Tehran University, an AFP correspondent reported.
Senior Iranian officials, including President Masoud Pezeshkian and Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami, attended the ceremony, state television images showed.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced the day before that Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn strike on Wednesday on their accommodation in Tehran.
The New York Times however reported, citing anonymous sources including two Iranian officials, that the blast was caused by an explosive device planted several months ago.
When asked about the report, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters “there was no other Israeli aerial attack … in all the Middle East” on the night of Shukr’s killing.
Qatar-based Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian’s swearing-in on Tuesday.
The international community has called for calm and a focus on securing a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip – which Haniyeh had accused Israel of obstructing.
US President Joe Biden said late on Thursday he was “very concerned” about rising tensions in the region, adding that the killing of Haniyeh had “not helped” the situation.
The White House said Biden spoke with Netanyahu by phone on Thursday, promising to defend Israel’s security “against all threats from Iran”.
“We have the basis for a ceasefire. He should move on it and they should move on it now,” Biden told reporters after the call.
The prime minister of key ceasefire broker Qatar said Haniyeh’s killing had thrown the whole Gaza war mediation process into doubt.
“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said on social media site X.
The killings are the latest of several major incidents that have inflamed regional tensions during the Gaza war which has drawn in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Beyond Gaza, clashes continued on Thursday with Lebanese authorities reporting four Syrians killed in an Israeli strike, followed by Hezbollah announcing a barrage of “dozens” of rockets at Israel.