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Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered a direct strike on Israel in response to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of the Palestinian Hamas Movement, in the Iranian capital, Tehran, The New York Times reported on July 31.
Citing three unnamed Iranian officials briefed on the matter, including two from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the newspaper said that Khamenei gave the directive at an emergency meeting of the Supreme National Security Council held shortly after Haniyeh’s killing was announced.
As part of the order, the officials said Khamenei told army and IRGC commanders to prepare both attack and defense plans “in the event that the war expands and Israel or the United States strike Iran.”
Among the options being weighed is a combined drone and missile assault — similar to Iran’s direct attack on Israel several months ago — on military targets around the cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, according to the officials, who asserted that Iran would go out of its way not to strike civilian sites.
The officials also told The New York Times that military commanders are considering launching the attack in coordination with Iran’s allies in the Middle East “for maximum effect,” naming Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
Hamas said that Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed after the building where they were staying in Tehran was struck. Iranian authorities have not provided any details on the assassination as of yet. Israel didn’t claim responsibility on the official level.
Khamenei had met with Haniyeh before the assassination. The leader was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.
“With this action, the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime prepared the ground for harsh punishment for itself, and we consider it our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Khamenei said in a statement on the assassination.
The assassination of Haniyeh came just a few hours after an Israeli strike on the Lebanese capital, Beirut, killed Fuad Shukr, a senior military commander of Hezbollah. This will for sure increase the possibility of a joint strike by Iran and its allies against Israel.
With Israel on high alert for a possible response, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned in an address to the nation on July 31 that “challenging days are ahead,” but vowed the country was “ready for every scenario” and “will exact a very heavy price for any aggression against us.”
The recent assassinations may be an attempt by Israel to provoke a full-on regional war with Iran and its allies in order to make up for the failure in the Palestinian enclave of the Gaza Strip.
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