For the first time, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz acknowledged publicly on Monday that Israel killed Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July, escalating tensions between Tehran and its bitter rival Israel in a region already rocked by Israel’s war in Gaza and the war in Lebanon.
“These days, when the Houthi terrorist organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them at the beginning of my remarks: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded Iran’s defense systems and damaged the production systems, we have toppled the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which remains the last to stand,” Katz stated.
Israel will “damage their strategic infrastructure, and we will behead their leaders—just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon—we will do it in Hodeidah and Sana’a,” Katz declared at a ceremony honoring defense ministry staff.
Declaring solidarity with Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza, the Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for over a year in an attempt to impose a naval blockade on Israel.
Iranian authorities blamed Israel for the assassination of the political leader of the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas in Tehran toward the end of July. At the time, Israel made no explicit claims of responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.
As the war raged in Gaza following the October 7 Hamas-led attack on Israel, Haniyeh, who is typically based in Qatar, had served as the spokesperson for Hamas’ international diplomacy. The international community mediated indirect negotiations for a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave, in which he participated.
Yahya Sinwar, Haniyeh’s successor and the mastermind behind the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that set off the most recent wave of violence in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza a few months later.
