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CNN’s Laura Coates and a team of reporters and experts break down what we know about the death of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. #CNN #news
CNN’s Laura Coates and a team of reporters and experts break down what we know about the death of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. #CNN #news
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00:00Breaking news here on CNN, a major development in the Middle East.
00:04Hamas says the political leader of the organization the U.S. calls a terror group has been killed in Tehran.
00:11So far, the Israeli military is only saying they do not respond to reports in the foreign media.
00:16The White House says it is aware of the reports and is monitoring it.
00:20This comes as Israel and Hamas reluctant tense negotiations to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas.
00:28Let's go to CNN's Paula Hancox live in Abu Dhabi. Paula, what more do you know?
00:37Well, Laura, this is a very significant development.
00:40Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, killed in Tehran.
00:45This according to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
00:49It's been confirmed as well by a Hamas statement saying that he was killed in a residence in the Iranian capital
00:56as he was in town for the inauguration of the new Iranian leader.
01:02Now, we know that that inauguration of Iran's new president was on Tuesday.
01:08We don't have an exact timing of when this killing took place, but it was the early hours of Wednesday when the news emerged.
01:18Now, it is a significant development.
01:21We have heard, as you say, that Israel is saying it does not comment on foreign news media reports.
01:27Not an unexpected response from the IDF.
01:30It is one we have heard before when there have been these reports of high profile killings in other countries of Hamas or even of Hezbollah leaders.
01:41But everyone in the region does believe that Israel is behind this.
01:46Israel has made it very clear from October 7th after that Hamas attack in Israel that all of Hamas leadership was considered a target.
01:56That it would be going after the political and the military leadership of Hamas.
02:02Now, we know with Ismail Haniyeh that his residence in Gaza City was attacked by an Israeli airstrike just one month after those October 7th attacks.
02:12We also know that several months ago a number of his children were killed in Gaza as well.
02:18So his family has also been considered a target.
02:23Now, Ismail Haniyeh himself has been out of Gaza for some years now.
02:28He has been living largely in Doha, Qatar.
02:32He has been free to travel around the region.
02:34We know he has been to Tehran a number of times.
02:37He has been to Turkey.
02:39And so the fact that this has happened in the heart of Iran is very significant.
02:46The fact that the assassination was able to take place, that the intelligence was able to be gathered in Tehran itself
02:56is certainly something that is going to send a chill through the Hamas organization.
03:01Now, it is not the first time that the leadership has been targeted.
03:05We know that the military number two in Gaza, Mohamed Daif, Israel believes they killed him just recently.
03:14Also, back in January, Saleh al-Aruri, who was really considered a deputy political leader of Hamas, was also assassinated in Beirut.
03:24So this is not the first time that this has happened.
03:28But certainly the fact that it is the political leader of Hamas is a significant target.
03:35He has been very vocal. He has been very visible over recent months,
03:41not least when it comes to negotiations for a potential hostage deal to release Israeli hostages from Gaza and a ceasefire deal,
03:51which those discussions were ongoing.
03:54One can only imagine that this could well stall those, at least in the short term.
03:59Laura? Paula Hancox, please stand by.
04:01We have CNN political analyst and foreign policy analyst Barak Ravid on the phone.
04:06Barak, what are your sources telling you this is very consequential?
04:11Yes, it is very consequential. And just to understand how this assassination happened, according to the Iranian media,
04:19there are new details that are being published.
04:24Some sort of aircraft fired a missile into Hanea's bedroom through the window and killed him.
04:33You really need to have very good intelligence and very good operational capabilities to conduct such an operation.
04:45This is when you add that to the assassination of Hezbollah's top military leader in Beirut
04:54and to an airstrike conducted by the U.S. military in Iraq against pro-Iranian militias.
05:01This is a very bad day for the pro-Iranian axis in the region.
05:07And usually when Iran gets hit like that, there is a retaliation.
05:13Sometimes it's immediate, sometimes it takes time.
05:17And I think that the Iranians are now starting to work on how are they going to respond both directly
05:23and through their progress in the region for that wave or for that series of hits that they just got in the last 24 hours.
05:31And another interesting point, the White House top Middle East official, Brett McGurk, is now in the region.
05:39He had talks yesterday in Saudi Arabia, headed the delegation of all the top Middle East officials in the Biden administration.
05:47They went to Saudi Arabia to talk about the situation in Yemen and the Houthis.
05:51He's going to Egypt later today, and he's there while the whole region is getting more and more and more tense.
06:01And I think it will be very interesting to see whether McGurk changes his plans and goes to Israel.
06:07And to other countries in the region from Egypt, maybe to Doha in Qatar, maybe to other places.
06:15But his visit in the region is in a very interesting timing.
06:20Barack, is his presence in the region, does it make his safety more precarious at this juncture?
06:27Yeah, again, I think, you know, I'm pretty sure that, you know, he's taking all the needed security measures.
06:37But I think it's just, you know, it will be very, very interesting to see how the region is going to react to this series of events that are very, very dramatic.
06:51And I don't think when I think about this is one of the most dramatic days in the war since October 7th.
06:59And it's dramatic because it's not only in Gaza, it's in Beirut, it's in Tehran.
07:06And what we're seeing right now is how the whole region right now is engulfed in this crisis.
07:15CNN international diplomatic editor Nick Robertson is joining me as well.
07:20Nick, what does this mean for the entire organization of Hamas?
07:24I mean, this is one man. He is a very important one among the organization.
07:28There are other leaders, though.
07:32There are. I mean, one thinks immediately of Yair Sinwar, who's sort of the most important described by the Israeli officials as a dead man walking days after the October 7th attacks by Hamas.
07:46The main leader of Hamas, who's believed to be hiding out in tunnels in Gaza.
07:51It's significant in a way that Israel has the ability to reach into Tehran to take out a Hamas political leader there,
08:02one who lives in exile and is an important, a vital interlocutor so far in the talks on the hostages,
08:10and also be able to reach into reach into Beirut at the new year or around the new year to take out Hamas's top figure.
08:19Their reach into Beirut just yesterday to take out perhaps the number two in the Hezbollah command structure after after their supreme leader.
08:29So it's it's significant that Yair Sinwar is still able to hide out.
08:36And so far as we know, as far as we know, avoid Israel strikes inside of Gaza.
08:42I think that's one thing.
08:43But I think when we think about the consequences and the symbolism of taking out Ismail Hanira inside of Tehran, we have to look at the reason that he was there.
08:55I mean, he's been to Tehran before.
08:58Iran is widely seen as bankrolling, supporting ideologically behind Hamas, helping them prepare for the for the brutal October 7th attacks.
09:09But the reason that he was in Tehran now was to be there for the inauguration of Iran's new president.
09:15Following the death of their president a few months ago in a helicopter crash,
09:21there were elections and it was understood that of the candidates running,
09:25it was the sort of most moderate candidate that was put forward or allowed to run by the Supreme Council in Iran who won the elections.
09:36And Ismail Hanira was there visiting him, watching his inauguration.
09:41So this, you know, when you understand that Iran struck back directly at Israel for what it described as a targeted strike on a diplomatic compound inside of Damascus earlier this year.
09:58Is this when Israel took out, assassinated one of the top interlocutors between Tehran, one of the senior, most senior Islamic Republic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders helping to run the war in the region for Iran?
10:17When Tehran called that an attack on their diplomatic compound, this is a strike not just in Tehran, not just at a senior figure of Hamas,
10:30but at a time when he was there, when Iran was enjoying the inauguration of a new president.
10:38This will be seen by them most likely as an absolute diplomatic slap in the face, not just the assassination of Hanira, but when it was done and where it was done.
10:50The timing and the symbolism of it is really going to strike hard in Tehran, I would anticipate.
10:57And for this reason, trying to calculate their response at this time, one can imagine that it will be strong and it will be with passion.
11:09Where and how, as Barack Ravid was saying, we just don't know.