Iran deplores Israel’s brazen confession to assassinating Haniyeh in Tehran

Iran condemned Israel’s “brazen admission” of murdering Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July, calling it a “heinous crime.”

News ID: 5646

Date: 25 December 2024 - 10:31

TABNAK, Dec 25: "This brazen admission marks the first time the Israeli regime has openly confessed to its responsibility for this heinous crime," Iran's permanent ambassador to the UN Amir Saeid Iravani said in a letter addressed to the UN secretary-general and the president of the UN Security Council.

He said Israel’s confession underscores the international responsibility of the regime for its acts of terrorism and aggression.

"It also reaffirms the legitimacy and legality of Iran's defensive response on 1 October 2024," the Iranian diplomat said.

Iravani reiterated that the occupying and terrorist regime of Israel remains the most serious threat to regional and international peace and security.

He urged the UN Security Council to end the impunity of a regime that flagrantly defies international law and destabilizes the region.

The Iranian envoy also warned that continued silence of the Council would only embolden this terrorist regime to commit more atrocious crimes.

On Monday, Israel's minister for military affairs Israel Katz admitted his regime was responsible for the killing, the first time an official admission had been made.

Katz also vowed that the Israeli regime would escalate its attacks against Yemen, including by staging assassinations.

Haniyeh was assassinated on July 31 after the regime carried out a targeted killing operation against the Iranian capital Tehran, to which he had travelled as an official guest to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

The regime assassinated Haniyeh’s successor, Yahya Sinwar, in another attack against the Gaza Strip in October, and staged a targeted killing strike against Beirut in September that resulted in the assassination of Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Katz threatened that the regime would carry out the atrocities that he had mentioned in Yemen’s capital Sana’a and the western port city of al-Hudaydah.

Yemen’s Armed Forces have been conducting numerous pro-Palestinian strikes since October 7, 2023, when the Israeli regime began taking the Gaza Strip under a United States-backed genocidal war that has so far claimed the lives of more than 45,338 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The strikes have been targeting the American military assets that are deployed off Yemen’s coastline, strategic and sensitive targets across the occupied Palestinian territories as well as the Israeli ships and the vessels heading towards the territories.