Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz admitted this Monday (23) for the first time that the country was responsible for the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July, intensifying tensions between Tehran.
“In these days, when the Houthi terrorist organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them at the beginning of my statements: we defeated Hezbollah, we blinded Iran’s defense systems and damaged its production systems, we overthrew the regime of Assad in Syria, we have dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which remains the last one standing,” said Katz.
Israel will “damage its strategic infrastructure and we will behead its leaders – just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do the same in Hodeidah and Sana’a,” Katz said during a ceremony honoring Israeli personnel. Ministry of Defense.
The Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to impose a naval blockade on Israel in solidarity with the Palestinians in Israel’s year-long war in Gaza.
At the end of July, in a murder. At the time, there was no direct claim of responsibility by Israel for Haniyeh’s death.
With Qatar as his most frequent base recently, Haniyeh was the face of Hamas’s international diplomacy as the war sparked by the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel intensified in Gaza. He participated in internationally mediated indirect negotiations to reach a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.
Understand the conflicts involving Israel
At the end of November, a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was approved. This comes after months of bombings by the Israeli Army in Lebanon.
The offensive caused destruction and forced more than a million people to leave their homes to escape the war. Furthermore, it left dozens of people dead in Lebanese territory.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are radical groups financed by Iran, and therefore enemies of Israel.
The expectation is that the agreement will serve as the basis for a more lasting cessation of hostilities.
At the same time, the war continues in the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military is fighting Hamas and searching for hostages who were kidnapped more than a year ago during the radical group’s attack on Israeli territory on October 7, 2023. At the time, more than 1,200 people were killed and 250 kidnapped.
Since then, more than 43,000 Palestinians have died in Gaza during Israel’s offensive, which also destroyed virtually every building in the Palestinian territory.
On a third front of conflict, Israel and Iran exchanged attacks, which despite raising tension, did not evolve into an all-out war.
In addition, the Israeli Army has been carrying out bombings on Iranian-allied militia targets in Syria, Yemen and Iraq.
