The killing of Hamas's top political leader in Iran early
Wednesday is fueling concern of a wider Middle East war
and threatening to set back chances of an imminent ceasefire
deal in the Gaza conflict between Israel and the Iran
backed Hamas. People gathered in the Iranian capital Tehran
on Wednesday to mourn Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and demand
retaliation. The attack was widely assumed to have been
carried out by Israel coming less than 24 hours after
its military said it had killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad
Shaker. He is seen here in video released by
the Lebanese militant group. Israel will continue to.
However, the Israeli government has made no claim of
responsibility over Hani's kill. Spokesman David Mensah. We
did target FAK Shukar. He was the number two
in the Hezbollah organization, a dastardly terrorist on Ismail
Haniyeh. We are not commenting on that particular incident
told journalists that Israel remained committed to the Gaza ceasefire
negotiations and securing the release of Israeli hostages had been
the face of hamas' international diplomacy taking part in the
truce talks brokered by Egypt Qatar and the United States
Qatar condemned Hay's killing with its Prime Minister saying on
social media. How can mediation succeed when one party
assassinates the negotiator on the other side? However,
Washington has said it still believes a ceasefire was achievable
. Us, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Singaporean
TV, that his country played no part in Haniya's
killing. This is something we were not aware of
or involved in. It's very hard to speculate.
So uh I can't tell you what this means.
I can tell you that the imperative of getting a
cease fire, the importance that that has for everyone
remains. Uh and we will continue to labor that
for as long as it takes to get there.
We don't believe that an escalation is inevitable. Us
, national security spokesperson, John Kirby said there was
no immediate signs of escalation but admitted that risks were
certainly up right now. This is something that we've
been concerned about since the 7 October.