Haniyeh assassination in Tehran: ‘Huge message to Iranians’
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00:00Van Gorgestani, who joins me on the set.
00:02Ketavan, we just there heard the U.S. Defense Secretary saying there's always room for diplomacy,
00:06given these latest developments.
00:07Is that really still the case?
00:09Well, there are as many things pointing to possible escalations as there are for a possible
00:15status quo.
00:16Obviously, this is a huge blow and a huge message to the Iranians, because this, of
00:23course, happened on their soil, in their capital.
00:26Ismail Haniyeh was under their care at that moment.
00:30And it also happens about 24 hours after that strike in Beirut that supposedly, according
00:38to the Israelis, killed a top leader of Hezbollah, even though Hezbollah hasn't confirmed that
00:43he has died.
00:45So that would mean that the top leaders of Hezbollah and Hamas were targeted in the space
00:51of 24 hours.
00:52Hezbollah and Hamas, of course, two of the main groups that are backed by Iran.
00:57And Iran has said that there would be a retaliation, the Iranians saying that Israel would pay
01:03a heavy price for the killing of Ismail Haniyeh.
01:08At the same time, though, no one in the region wants a full-blown regional war.
01:14And they've all said that before.
01:17The Iranians have said it, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Israelis as well.
01:22And no one also has the means right now to carry out such a war because, of course, Hamas
01:30has been weakened in Gaza, Hezbollah doesn't want a full-blown war in Lebanon, and Israel
01:38is also having its own problems because it is focused on Gaza.
01:43So no one really wants that to get out of hand.
01:46But when you talk about retaliation, there has to be a retaliation.
01:50The Iranians or Hamas will have to retaliate.
01:52The question now is how are they going to calculate the form that this retaliation takes
01:59in order to send a message, but at the same time not to sort of go overboard and warrant
02:06another retaliation by the Israelis.
02:09The other big question, of course, is what will this do to the negotiations to try to
02:15end the war in Gaza, because Ismail Haniyeh was basically the face of those negotiations.
02:20He was the one shuttling back and forth in Turkey, in Qatar, talking in the name of Hamas.
02:28And right now, at the very least, there is likely going to be a pause in those negotiations.
02:34The question is more in the long term what will happen now that he is no longer there.
02:40Well, that really is the question.
02:41I mean, how do we see that playing out in the long term?
02:43Well, for Hamas, this is a huge blow, because he was not only the face of Hamas abroad,
02:51but he was really the political leader of Hamas.
02:54And it's also bad news for those like the Americans, like the Qataris, who are trying
02:59to mediate these negotiations, because he has been seen, even though he has been heavily
03:06criticized, of course, he has been seen relatively as more pragmatic than possibly other leaders
03:13within Hamas, someone that they can at least negotiate with and who has the sort of political,
03:20diplomatic fiber in him.
03:22The question now is who will replace him at that position.
03:28And there is a question of whether they're going to go with a more hardliner or go somewhere
03:36along the line of how he was perceived.
03:40The other thing that you have to remember is that there have been leaders of Hamas who
03:45have been killed in the past.
03:49And it is easier to kill a leader than to kill the actual ideology.
03:54And there will be someone that will take his place.
03:57The question is, what will that someone bring to the table?
04:01And that is something that no one really knows.
04:04Possibly even Hamas, have they planned a sort of plan B?
04:08They knew that they were all targets, those leaders.
04:11Who is going to come next is really going to determine the future of the whole situation,
04:16whether it's in Gaza or in the region more broadly.