Reactions to assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran on Wednesday, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said in separate statements.

Here are reactions so far:

Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of Yemen’s Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee said: “Targeting Ismail Haniyeh is a heinous terrorist crime and a flagrant violation of laws and ideal values.”

Sami Abu Zuhri, senior Hamas official, said: “This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas and the will of our people and achieve fake goals.”

“We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve its objectives. Hamas is a concept and an institution and not persons. Hamas will continue on this path regardless of the sacrifices and we are confident of victory.”

For its part, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which part of the Iran-backed axis of the resistance, said in a statement that Haniyeh’s death will “increase the determination of resistance fighters across all resistance arenas.”

Russia also commented on Haniyeh’s killing.

“This is an absolutely unacceptable political murder, and it will lead to further escalation of tensions”” RIA cited Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying.

Bogdanov also said the killing will also have a negative impact on ceasefire talks in Gaza, RIA added.

Russia, which has relationships with Arab countries, Iran and Hamas as well as with Israel, has frequently condemned violence in the region and accused the United States of ignoring the need for an independent Palestinian state.

The Turkish foreign ministry said the assassination of Haniyeh aims to spread the war in Gaza to a regional level.

“We condemn the assassination of the leader of Hamas’s political office, Ismail Haniyeh, in a shameful assassination in Tehran,” the ministry said, adding that “this attack also aims to spread the Gaza war to a regional dimension.”

“We express our condolences to the Palestinian people who have sacrificed hundreds of thousands of martyrs like Haniyeh in order to live in peace in their homeland under the roof of their own state,” the ministry added.

“Once again the (Benjamin) Netanyahu government has shown that it has no intention of achieving peace.”

“If the international community does not take measures to stop Israel, our region will face much larger conflicts.”

Qatar strongly condemned the killing of Haniyeh and said it was a dangerous escalation.