Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led funeral prayers this morning for Hamas’s Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh and his security guard, who were assassinated during a visit to Tehran on Wednesday.
During a ceremony held at Tehran University, Ayatollah Khamenei paid homage to the Hamas chief and his bodyguard, Wasim Abu Shaaban.
Earlier, massive crowds of Iranian mourners took part in a funeral procession for the assassinated Hamas official.
Addressing the ceremony, Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said the Israeli regime is desperate in the face of resistance fighters.
“It is our duty to react in the right place and at the right time,” he pointed out.
The Iranian speaker also warned that the Israeli regime will pay a “heavy price” for its act of assassination.
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Addressing huge crowds of mourners, Khalil al-Hayya, deputy chief of the Hamas Political Bureau in the Gaza Strip, said the Zionist regime is delusional to think that it can change the path of the resistance front or weaken its will through Haniyeh’s assassination.
He added that the world should try to uproot the Israeli regime as a cancerous tumor.
On Wednesday, Ayatollah Khamenei warned the Israeli regime of a “harsh response” for the the assassination of Haniyeh, saying it is the Islamic Republic’s duty to avenge the blood of the Palestinian resistance leader.
“The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our homeland and left us bereaved, but it also set the ground for a harsh punishment for itself,” he said.
Haniyeh was in the Iranian capital to attend Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s newly-elected President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Israel has not officially commented on Haniyeh’s assassination but Israeli media leaks suggest he was seemingly killed by a precision-guided missile fired directly through the window of the apartment in the military veterans building in which he was staying while attending the newly-elected Iranian president’s swearing-in ceremony.
Israeli commentators are saying the assassination is indicative of Israel’s ability to locate and strike Hamas leaders and testify to the sophistication of Israel’s intelligence and its ability to conduct precision strikes.
