Funeral for slain Hamas leader Haniyeh to be held in Qatar

By Tala Ramadan and Jana Choukeir

DUBAI (Reuters) – Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh will be buried in Qatar on Friday following his assassination in the Iranian capital Tehran, one in a series of killings of senior figures in the Palestinian militant group as the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza rages.

Haniyeh will be interred in a cemetery after funeral prayers in the city of Lusail, north of Qatar’s capital Doha.

Hamas politburo member Izzat al-Rishq called on people to pray for his soul in all mosques around the world.

“Let today, Friday, be a day of overwhelming anger denouncing the assassination crime and rejecting the genocide in the Gaza Strip,” he said in a statement.

Haniyeh was killed by a missile that hit him directly in a state guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying, senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya told a news conference in the Iranian capital, quoting witnesses who were with him.

Iran and Hamas have both accused Israel of carrying out the killing and have pledged to retaliate against their foe. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the death nor denied it.

The strike was one of several that have killed senior figures in Hamas or the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, fuelling concern that the war in Gaza between Israel and Palestinian militants is turning into a regional conflict stretching from the Red Sea to the Lebanon-Israel border and beyond.

In the United States, U.S. President Joe Biden said Haniyeh’s killingwas not helpful to international efforts to secure a ceasefire in the war in Gaza, now in its 10th month.

“It doesn’t help,” Biden told reporters on Thursday, when asked if the action ruined the chances of a truce.

Qatar has been leading the peace effort along with Egypt and the United States, Israel’s main ally.

WIDOW MOURNS

Haniyeh had been the face of Hamas’s international diplomacy as war raged back in Gaza and had taken part in the indirect ceasefire talks.

He was seen by many diplomats as a moderate compared to the more hardline members of the Iran-backed group inside Gaza, although some Israeli commentators have said he was considered by some on the Israeli side as an obstacle to a deal.

Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, he moved between Turkey and Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the blockaded Gaza Strip.

In May, the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office requested arrest warrants for three Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for alleged war crimes. Israel and Palestinian leaders have dismissed the allegations.

Iran’s first vice president Mohammad Reza Aref left Tehran for Doha to attend Haniyeh’s funeral after the Islamic Republic held its own ceremony on Thursday which was attended by his widow Amal Haniyeh.

“Say hello to all the martyrs of Gaza, say hello to the leaders, to all Gaza’s martyrs, all the Muslims,” Amal Haniyeh said as she mourned beside his coffin.

While Israel has not said it carried out the killing, it has announced that an air strike it mounted last month killed the elusive Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif in Gaza. Hamas has not confirmed or denied the death of Deif.

Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that its senior military commander Fuad Shukr had been killed in an Israeli strike on a building in Beirut.

Hezbollah vowed on Thursday a “definite” response to Shukr’s killing, saying it had crossed red lines and that the decades-old rivalry between foes had entered a new phase.

“We are looking for a real response, not a performative response, and for real opportunities. A studied response,” said Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, speaking in a televised address to mark the funeral of the slain commander.