U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday the United States was not involved in or made aware of the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
“This is something we were not aware of or involved in. It’s very hard to speculate,” Blinken said in an interview with Channel News Asia during a visit to Singapore, when asked what impact it could have, according to a transcript.
Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh has been assassinated in Iran’s capital, Tehran, according to a statement from the group that governs Gaza, which blamed Israel for his death.
Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed after the building where they were staying was struck, the statement said, adding that Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
According to media reports, the Hamas leader was killed when an “airborne guided projectile” hit a special residence for military veterans in the north of Tehran, at which he was staying, at about 2am (22:30 GMT on Tuesday).
Israel remained silent on Haniyeh’s death, with media there reporting that the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered cabinet ministers not to comment. Far-right Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu, however, celebrated the Hamas leader’s death on social media platform X.
Reuters
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