Iran's envoy to the United Nations (UN) has said that Israel's "clear confession" to assassinating Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil justifies Tehran's military response against Israel on October 1.
Iran's Permanent Representative to the UN, Amir Saeid Iravani, made the remarks in a letter addressed to the UN Security Council while reacting to the confession on Monday by Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, in which he admitted for the first time that Israel had assassinated Haniyeh in Tehran, Xinhua news agency cited a report from Iran's semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Haniyeh was assassinated on July 31 along with his bodyguard when their home in Tehran was attacked. Both Hamas and Iran blamed Israel for the assassination.
On October 1, Iran fired dozens of ballistic missiles at Israel, saying the attack was a response to the assassinations of prominent resistance figures, including Haniyeh, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and senior Iranian commander Abbas Nilforoushan.
During an address at a recent event organised by the Defence Ministry, Katz had also called for a warning to Yemen Houthi forces due to their drone attacks which are intercepted by Israeli air defense systems.
"We will pound the Houthis mercilessly, target their critical infrastructure, and decapitate their leadership -- exactly what we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon," he said.
The attack, according to a statement published on IRGC's official news outlet Sepah News, resulted in the killing of Haniyeh and his bodyguard. The attack is currently under investigation; its result will be later announced, according to the statement.
A July 31 report by the semi-official Fars news agency in Iran claimed that Haniyeh was assassinated at about 2 am local time on July 31, after a 'projectile' hit his residence in Tehran. The Islamic Hamas movement had confirmed the killing of its leader, citing that Haniyeh was assassinated in an Israeli attack in Iran.
Hamas in a press statement expressed its grief saying that it "mourns to the Palestinian people, the Arab and Islamic nation, and the free people of the world" following the death of Haniyeh, who had been in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 30. Haniyeh was also expected to discuss with the Iranian president the political and field developments related to the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the Gaza Strip.
Previously, the Israeli military has stated that it killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in southern Gaza and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburb of Dahieh.
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