Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has ordered a "direct attack" on Israel in retaliation for the killing of top Hamas's leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, The New York Times reported, while citing three Iranian officials.
Shortly after announcing the death of Haniyeh, Iran called out an emergency meeting of the country's Supreme National Security Council on Wednesday morning. According to the officials, Khamenei gave orders of attack during the meeting. Such a meeting only occurs during extraordinary circumstances. Earlier in April, a similar meeting was called after an Israeli airstrike in Syria killed two top Iranian military commanders.
Meanwhile, Israel's Channel 12 reported that messages have been sent to Iran through diplomatic backchannels that Israel is willing to go to a full-scale war if Iran and its proxies conduct any attack against the country.
Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for the killing. So far, Israel has neither accepted nor denied the killing of Haniyeh, who was in Tehran for the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.
Without mentioning the assassination, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated that Israel “will exact a very heavy price from any aggression against us on any front.”
“There are challenging days ahead,” he was quoted as saying by the news agency Associated Press (AP) in its report.
However, earlier, during the beginning of the Gaza war, Israel had vowed to kill Ismail Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group's October 7 attack on Israel.
After Haniyeh's killing in Tehran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a statement on his official website, stated that the "revenge" was "our duty", and that Israel had “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear guest in our home.”
Iran and the regional forces it supports — including Hamas, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, and various militias in Iraq — refer to themselves as the "axis of resistance." Leaders from these groups gathered in Tehran on Tuesday for the inauguration of Pezeshkian.
Haniyeh was killed around 2 am (local time), following his attendance at the ceremony and a meeting with Khamenei.
The assassination shocked Iranian officials, who called it crossing red lines.
Meanwhile, according to Iran's state-run Press TV, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will lead funeral prayers for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh on Thursday.
