Iranians take part in a funeral ceremony for late Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran,Yesterday.
Iran and its regional allies vowed retaliation yesterday 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’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in the Iranian capital where he was killed early Wednesday in an attack which Israel has not commented on. Haniyeh’s body was then flown to Qatar, where he is to be laid to rest today, 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 occupied Golan Heights, warned its adversaries yesterday they would “pay a very high price” for any “aggression”. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP that Iranian officials met in Tehran on Wednesday with representatives of the so-called “axis of resistance”, a loose alliance of Tehran-backed groups hostile to Israel, to discuss their next steps. “Two scenarios were discussed: a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a staggered response from each party,” said the source who had been briefed on the meeting, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
