Doha mourns Haniyeh, Hezbollah chief threatens retaliation
The coffin of Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh — killed the previous day in an Israeli strike on Tehran — arrived in Doha on August 1st after a public funeral in Iran, meanwhile Hezbollah chief Hassam Nasrallah threatened the group’s retaliation, The New Arab and agencies reported.
Haniyeh will be buried in Qatar on August 2nd following prayers at Doha’s largest Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque. His funeral procession was held in Tehran, with prayers led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
On August 1st, Hezbollah’s Nasrallah vowed to respond to Haniyeh’s killing, declaring that Israel had “crossed red lines” and entered the conflict into “a new phase unlike the previous one.”
The group’s conflict with Israel began when it backed Hamas in its war with Israel, further accelerating the frequent cross-border attacks between Israel and Lebanon. Earlier in July, Nasrallah threatened that Hezbollah would attack Israel should the number of Palestinian civilian casualties increase.
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He added that a series of unnamed countries had asked Hezbollah to retaliate against Haniyeh’s death either in an “acceptable way” or not at all — the latter of which Nasrallah deemed “impossible.”
“There is no discussion on this point,” he said, addressing Israel. “The only things lying between us and you are the days, the nights and the battlefield.”
Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was also killed in an Israeli strike on a Beirut suburb on July 31st. Lebanese media reported that Nasrallah would speak on August 1st — the day of Sukr’s funeral — to commemorate him.
Nasrallah said Hezbollah had quieted its operations out of respect for the strike’s victims but would “go back to work normally starting tomorrow morning.” He added that retaliation for Shukr’s killing would follow.
The New Arab and agencies
