ISRAEL’s Minister of Defence Israel Katz has for the first time publicly acknowledged that his country assassinated Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, warning that the Yemen-based Houthis will also be struck a “severe blow”.
Speaking on Monday evening at an event honouring Defence Ministry personnel, Katz said Israel had “dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organisation in Yemen, which remains the last to stand”.
“When the Houthi terrorist organisation is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them at the beginning of my remarks: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded Iran’s defence systems and damaged the production systems, we have toppled the [Bashar al-]Assad regime in Syria,” Katz said.
Israel will “damage [Houthi] strategic infrastructure, and we will behead their leaders – just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do it in [Yemen’s] Hodeidah and Sanaa”, Katz added, referencing the subsequent killings of Hamas’s Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.
The Houthis have carried out numerous missile attacks on Israel in recent months, including a strike on Tel Aviv on Saturday using what the Houthis described as a hypersonic ballistic missile.
More than a dozen people were lightly injured when the missile evaded Israeli defence systems and struck a public park in Jaffa.
Haniyeh was assassinated on July 31 while visiting Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
According to Iranian state media reports at the time, the Hamas leader and his bodyguard were killed when an “airborne guided projectile” hit a special residence for military veterans, in which he was staying, in northern Tehran at about 2am local time.
Iranian and Palestinian officials blamed the assassination on Israel, but Israeli officials had until now neither confirmed nor denied its involvement.
Haniyeh’s killing sparked anger across Palestine and stoked fears of a wider regional conflict as Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei promised “harsh punishment” in retaliation.
In October, Iran launched a barrage of missiles at several Israeli cities in what it said was retaliation for the killings of the leaders of its allies, Hamas and Hezbollah.
The Israeli army said only a “few” hits were recorded in the central and southern parts of the country, while Israel’s emergency service said two people were injured from falling shrapnel in the Tel Aviv area.
