Hamas leader’s killing risks ‘wider conflict’, Islamic bloc chair warns

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia- AFP

The “heinous” killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh risks tipping the Middle East into “wider conflict”, the chair of a Saudi-based Islamic bloc told a summit on Wednesday.

The comments from Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara came as a senior Iranian official said during the same meeting that the Islamic republic would need to defend itself from Israel, which it blames for Haniyeh’s death last week in Tehran.

“This heinous act serves only to escalate the existing tensions potentially leading to a wider conflict that could involve the entire region,” said Tangara, whose country currently chairs the OIC.

Haniyeh’s killing “will not quell the Palestinian cause but rather it amplifies it, underscoring the urgency for justice and human rights for the Palestinian people,” he said.

“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of nation states are fundamental principles underpinning the international order.

“Respecting these principles has profound implications and their violation equally carries significant consequences.”

– Region on edge –

Israel has not commented on Haniyeh’s death, which Iran has vowed to avenge, putting the region on edge.

“Currently, in the absence of any appropriate action by the (United Nations) Security Council against the aggressions and violations of the Israeli regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to use its inherent right to legitimate defence against the aggressions of this regime,” Ali Bagheri, Iran’s acting foreign minister, told the OIC on Wednesday.

US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller voiced hope on Wednesday that “all parties that have a relationship with Iran impress upon Iran, the same way we’ve been impressing upon the government of Israel, that they shouldn’t take any steps to escalate the conflict”.

Miller said the United States had been in touch with a number of nations attending the OIC meeting and believed there was a “broad consensus” that “escalation would only exacerbate the problems facing the region”.

Hamas’s Lebanese ally Hezbollah has also pledged to retaliate for Haniyeh’s killing and that of its military commander Fuad Shukr in an Israeli strike in Beirut hours earlier.