Israeli Minister Claims Responsibility for 1st Time for Hamas Leader’s Assassination

26 March 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Then Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz greets German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a hotel in Jerusalem before talks. (dpa)
26 March 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Then Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz greets German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a hotel in Jerusalem before talks. (dpa)
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Israeli Minister Claims Responsibility for 1st Time for Hamas Leader’s Assassination

26 March 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Then Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz greets German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a hotel in Jerusalem before talks. (dpa)
26 March 2024, Israel, Jerusalem: Then Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz greets German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock in a hotel in Jerusalem before talks. (dpa)

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz admitted on Monday for the first time publicly to Israel's killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July, further risking tensions between Tehran and its arch-enemy Israel in a region shaken by Israel's war in Gaza and the conflict in Lebanon.

"These days, when the Houthi terrorist organization 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 defense systems and damaged the production systems, we have toppled the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which remains the last to stand," Katz said.

Israel will "damage their 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 Hodeidah and Sanaa," Katz said during an evening honoring defense ministry personnel.

The Iran-backed group in Yemen has been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year to try to enforce a naval blockade on Israel, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Israel's year-long war in Gaza.

In late July, the political leader of the Palestinian group Hamas was killed in Tehran in an assassination blamed on Israel by Iranian authorities. There was no direct claim of responsibility by Israel for the killing of Haniyeh at the time.

Haniyeh, normally based in Qatar, had been the face of Hamas' international diplomacy as the war set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 has raged in Gaza. He had been taking part in internationally brokered indirect talks on reaching a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.

Months after, Israeli forces in Gaza killed Yahya Sinwar, Haniyeh's successor and the mastermind of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



Hamas Says Ready to Free All Hostages at Once in Gaza Truce Phase Two

The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Says Ready to Free All Hostages at Once in Gaza Truce Phase Two

The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas signaled on Wednesday that it was willing to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during the next phase of an ongoing ceasefire.  

Israel and Hamas are currently in the process of implementing phase one of the fragile truce, which has held since taking effect on January 19 despite accusations of violations on both sides.  

Israel's foreign minister said on Tuesday that talks would begin "this week" on the second phase, which is expected to lay out a more permanent end to the war.

"We have informed the mediators that Hamas is ready to release all hostages in one batch during the second phase of the agreement, rather than in stages as in the current first phase," senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

He did not clarify how many hostages were currently being held by Hamas or other armed groups.  

Nunu said this step was meant "to confirm our seriousness and complete readiness to move forward in resolving this issue, as well as to continue steps towards cementing the ceasefire and achieving a sustainable truce".  

Under the ceasefire's first phase, 19 Israeli hostages have been released so far in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails in a series of Red Cross-mediated swaps.  

Wednesday's offer came after Israel and Hamas announced a deal for the return of all six remaining living hostages eligible for release under phase one in a single swap this weekend.  

Hamas also agreed on Tuesday to return the bodies of eight dead hostages in two groups this week and next.  

After the completion of the first phase, 58 hostages will remain in Gaza.  

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Wednesday that it would release the body of Israeli hostage Oded Lifshitz on Thursday. The group said Lifshitz was one of the hostages killed during Israeli strikes on Gaza.  

- 'Room to pressure Hamas' -  

Muhammad Shehada, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that after more than a year of devastating Israeli assault in Gaza, "Hamas wants to prevent the war resuming at any cost", albeit with some "red lines".  

"And one of those red lines is that they should continue to exist, basically, whereas (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's position is that they should dismantle themselves," he said.  

Since the start of the war, Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas's capacity to fight or govern, something the group has rejected.  

But the appearance that Washington is now in complete alignment with Netanyahu's government, as displayed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit this week, strengthened the Israeli premier's hand in negotiations, according to Michael Horowitz, an expert at the risk management consultancy Le Beck International.  

It gives Netanyahu "more room to pressure Hamas", Horowitz said, adding that US President Donald Trump "prefers that the agreement moves forward, but he's leaving the field open to Netanyahu... as long as the ceasefire is maintained".  

- 'Held onto hope' -

Among the bodies Hamas said it would hand over on Thursday are those of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, who have become national symbols in Israel of the hostages' ordeal.  

The boys' father Yarden Bibas was taken hostage separately on October 7, 2023, and was released alive during an earlier hostage-prisoner swap.  

While Hamas said Shiri Bibas and her boys were killed in an Israeli air strike early in the war, Israel has never confirmed this, and many supporters remain unconvinced of their deaths, including members of the Bibas family.  

"I ask that no one eulogize my family just yet. We have held onto hope for 16 months, and we are not giving up now," the boys' aunt, Ofri Bibas, wrote on Facebook late Tuesday following Hamas's announcement.  

Israeli authorities have confirmed that the remains of four hostages are due to be returned on Thursday, although they have not officially named them.  

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has acted as go-between in the exchanges, called for a respectful handover of the hostages' remains.  

"We once again call for all releases to be conducted in a private and dignified manner, including when they tragically involve the deceased," it said.  

Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, of whom 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.  

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.  

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,297 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.  

Since the war began, Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Gazans, some of whom have been released in previous rounds of hostage-prisoner exchanges.