Indian Union Minister Nitin Gadkari shared the stage with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh on Tuesday, less than 24 hours before Haniyeh was killed in a pre-dawn airstrike in Iran. Both leaders, along with other international dignitaries, were attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran.
Senior officials from several countries, including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Iraq, Armenia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Cuba, and Brazil, were also present at the event. European Union envoy Enrique Mora was reportedly in attendance as well, according to AFP.
Haniyeh was joined at the ceremony by other Iran-backed regional allies, including Ziyad al-Nakhalah of Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah deputy secretary general Naim Qassem from Lebanon, and Mohammed Abdulsalam, spokesperson for Yemen’s Huthi rebels.
Following Haniyeh’s death, Hamas and Iran, who blamed Israel for the strike, vowed retaliation. Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also threatened “harsh punishment” for Haniyeh’s killing, stating, “We consider it our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”
Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian echoed this sentiment, warning the Zionists of impending consequences. “The Zionists will soon see the consequences of their cowardly and terrorist act,” he said, adding that such actions indicate the “policies of the Zionist regime have reached a dead end.”
Israel has not commented on the Tehran strike, which came after it targeted a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut, aiming at a senior commander of the Lebanese militant group blamed for a deadly rocket strike on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights over the weekend.
This event occurs in the context of heightened tensions, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu having pledged to destroy Hamas in response to its October 7 attacks on Israel, which led to the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
