Iran asserts Israel’s admission of killing Hamas leader Haniyeh legitimizes its Oct missile attack

Iran’s UN Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani on Tuesday claimed that Israel admitting to killing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31 justified Iran’s large missile attack on Israel on Oct. 1.

“In a shameless admission, the regime’s Minister of Warmongering confessed to the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader and former Prime Minister of Palestine, during his visit to Tehran. This brazen act underscores Israel’s role in terrorism, legitimizes Iran’s response on 1 October 2024, and reaffirms the Zionist regime as a serious threat to global peace, which must be stopped,” Iravani wrote on 𝕏.

Haniyeh, the political leader of the Hamas terrorist organization, was eliminated during his stay at a guest house in Tehran, where he was attending the inauguration of the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

While the exact circumstances of Haniyeh's elimination are still unclear, it was widely assumed that Israel was behind the targeted assassination of the top Hamas leader. For months, Israel refrained from officially taking responsibility for his death.

In a video clip from Oct. 7, 2023, Haniyeh could be seen praising the unprecedented Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israeli civilians and foreign nationals, which included women, children and elderly Holocaust survivors.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz surprisingly acknowledged that Israel had eliminated Haniyeh while issuing a warning to target leaders of the Houthi rebel group, an Iranian-backed terror proxy in Yemen, which continues to launch missiles at Israel.

“We will strike [the Houthis’] strategic infrastructure and decapitate its leaders. Just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah, in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do in Hodeidah and Sanaa,” Katz warned.

Iran’s UN envoy, who referred to Israel as a “terrorist regime,” blasted the international community for what he claimed as inaction against Israel.

“The continued silence of the Security Council, entrusted with the primary responsibility for maintenance of international peace and security, would not only embolden this terrorist regime for the commission of more atrocious crimes but also undermine the core principles upon which the United Nations was founded,” Iravani said.

The Iranian ayatollah regime, which is widely considered the world’s largest sponsor of state terrorism, openly calls for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Over the years, the Iranian regime has invested billions of dollars in establishing its “ring of fire,” which consists of Iranian-backed terrorist militias, such as Hamas and Hezbollah that encircle Israel.

Iran's strategy is aimed at enabling asymmetric warfare against Israel, the United States, and moderate Sunni Arab states. However, over the past year, Iran’s proxy strategy has suffered severe blows. Following the Hamas Oct. 7 attack, Israel has largely dismantled the terror group in Gaza as an organized military militia and delivered severe blows to Iran’s most powerful terrorist militia – Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On Dec. 8, the Iranian regime suffered an additional severe blow as it witnessed the collapse of its crucial ally – the Syrian Assad regime.

Syria, under its now-deposed dictator, President Bashar al-Assad, played a critical role in the Iranian regime’s ambitions to establish a Shiite land corridor between Tehran and Hezbollah in Lebanon on the Mediterranean. The collapse of the Assad regime has significantly undermined Iran's efforts to continue supplying the severely weakened Hezbollah with weapons.