▲ Thousands attended the tribute to the Islamist leader, who will be buried today in Qatar.Photo Ap
AFP, Reuters and Sputnik
The newspaper La Jornada
Friday, August 2, 2024, p. 28
Tehran. Thousands of Iranians demanded revenge yesterday during the funeral procession of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
Carrying Palestinian flags and portraits of Haniyeh, a crowd of Iranians gathered at Tehran University for the start of the funeral procession for the Islamist leader, who will be buried today in Doha, Qatar, where he usually resided.
State television broadcast live footage of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading prayers at the funeral of Haniyeh, who was killed early Wednesday in an attack on the home where he was staying. He had travelled to the capital to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
Thousands of mourners dressed in black chanted Death to Israel and Death to the United States.
The funeral broadcast showed the coffins of the Hamas political leader and his bodyguard draped in Palestinian flags; the coffins, with a black-and-white pattern resembling the Palestinian kufiya headscarf, were transported on a flower-bedecked truck through the streets of Tehran.
The ceremony was attended by high-ranking Iranian figures such as President Pezeshkian and the head of the Revolutionary Guard, General Hosein Salami, as well as Hamas’s foreign relations chief, Khalil Al Hayya, who said during the ceremony that “Ismail Haniyeh’s slogan, ‘we will not recognize Israel,’ will remain an immortal motto.”
Rest in peace, Abu Al-Abed Ismail Haniyeh. Our nation, Iran, the Axis of Resistance, your people, your fighters…, we are united on the path of resistance to end the Zionist occupation.Hamas deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil Al-Haya, said in a televised speech on campus.
The armed wing of Hamas reiterated in a statement that the assassination of its political leader It would take the battle to new dimensions and have great repercussions.; For its part, Iran, which has vowed to retaliate, declared three days of national mourning the day before yesterday and said the United States was responsible for supporting Israel.
Meanwhile, the American newspaper The New York Times Citing officials from regional countries and the United States, the Iranian government said Haniyeh was killed by a bomb planted in the house where he was staying.
Iran and the Palestinian Islamist militant group accused Israel of carrying out the attack that killed Haniyeh.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged all parts in the Middle East to which dialogue and cease any action that contributes to the escalation.
Meanwhile, Israel claimed to have killed Hamas military chief Mohamed Deif in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Yunis, Gaza, on July 13, killing 90 Palestinians, the Gaza Health Ministry said at the time.
The Israeli air force attacked a building where, according to reconnaissance data, Deif and the head of the Hamas battalion in Khan Yunis, Rafa Salameh, were located. The death of the latter was confirmed a few weeks ago, the Israeli military command said.
The Islamist movement denied that its military chief was among the victims and called Israel’s claims that it had attacked Hamas leaders in Khan Yunis false.
Meanwhile, the Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip continued yesterday. At least 15 Palestinians were killed yesterday and 40 wounded in an Israeli attack on a school housing dozens of displaced families in the Shujayea neighborhood of Gaza City, Qatari television Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli army has shelled an apartment block in Gaza City, and there were no reports of how many people were killed or wounded at the time of writing, the Wafa news agency reported.