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BEIRUT (AP) — Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ top leader in exile who landed on Israel’s hit list after the militant group staged its surprise Oct. 7 attacks, was killed in an airstrike in the Iranian capital early Wednesday. He was 62. Hamas said Haniyeh was killed at his residence in Tehran in an Israeli airstrike after he attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s new president. Israel has not commented on the accusation. Haniyeh’s death would make him the latest Hamas official to be killed by Israel since the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks, when militants killed 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages. The devastating Israel-Hamas war the attacks set off has become the deadliest and longest in the Arab-Israeli conflict. More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to health officials in Gaza. While Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar is believed to have been the mastermind of the attacks, Haniyeh, head of the group’s political bureau who was seen as a more moderate force in Hamas, lauded them as a humiliating blow to Israel’s aura of invincibility. “The Al-Aqsa flood was an earthquake that struck the heart of the Zionist entity and has made major changes at the world level,” Haniyeh said in a speech in Iran during the funeral of late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in May. “We will continue the resistance against this enemy until we liberate our land, all our land,” Haniyeh said.

Hours after the Oct. 7 attacks, Haniyeh appeared in a video released by Hamas leading prayers with other top Hamas officials. They thanked God for the success of the attack, which blasted through Israel’s vaunted defenses and resulted in the deadliest assault in Israel’s history.

Michael Milshtein, a Hamas expert at Tel Aviv University, said Haniyeh had a commanding role in the group’s foreign policy and diplomacy, but was less involved in military affairs. “He was responsible for propaganda, for diplomatic relations, but he was not very powerful,” said Milshtein, a former military intelligence officer. “From time to time, Sinwar even laughed and joked: ‘He’s the more moderate, sophisticated leader, but he doesn’t understand anything about warfare.’” Still, Israel pledged to target all of Hamas’ leaders following the attacks and has gradually worked to fulfill that promise. Haniyeh was also under the eye of the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor sought arrest warrants against him and two other Hamas leaders, Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Similar requests were issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Haniyeh lived in self-imposed exile in Qatar since 2019 and the threats against him did not prevent him from traveling. He visited Turkey and Iran throughout the war. From Doha, he was involved in negotiations meant to bring about a cease-fire and free the hostages. His role in Hamas’ leadership also cost him his closest relatives. In April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three of Haniyeh’s sons, after which he accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed as well as his sister in a separate strike last month. Haniyeh, who was born in Gaza’s urban Shati refugee camp, joined Hamas when it was founded in 1987. He served as an aid to Ahmad Yassin, the group’s founder, and rose throughout the years until he became its top political leader, replacing Khaled Mashaal in 2017. Haniyeh was deeply religious and studied Arabic literature at university. He was known for delivering lengthy speeches using flowery language to his supporters while serving as prime minister in Gaza. Hani Masri, a veteran Palestinian analyst who met Haniyeh several times, said the late leader’s personality was a natural fit for the head of the group’s political bureau in Doha. He described him as having been sociable and well spoken.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian (pictured) said on Wednesday that Iran will “defend its territorial integrity, dignity, honor, and pride, and will make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act” after the assassination of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh. He was killed in his residence in the Iranian capital of Tehran, where he was staying after attending Pezeshkian’s inauguration on Tuesday. Pezeshkian did not outline any immediate actions by the Iranian government. Meanwhile, Hamas blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death and warned it “won’t go unpunished.”

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard announced Wednesday, but nobody immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. Israel was immediately blamed for the assassination after pledging to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish State, which killed 1,200 people and roughly 250 others were abducted, according to the Associated Press. Haniyeh was in Tehran for Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in on Tuesday. Pezeshkian was sworn in with chants of “Death to America, Israel.” On Tuesday morning, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted on the social media platform X that he met with Haniyah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement Secretary General Ziyad al-Nakhalah.

Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, speaks to journalists after his meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, in Beirut, Lebanon, June 28, 2021. AP Newsroom© AP

Iran did not provide any details on how Haniyeh was killed. The incident is under investigation.

Analysts on Iranian state television immediately cast blame on Israel for the assassination.

Israel did not immediately comment, but it usually does not make public comments on assassinations carried out by their Mossad intelligence agency. “The fact that such a high-ranking Hamas leader was assassinated on Iranian soil was an added bonus for Israel particularly directly after he participated in the inauguration ceremony of the new Islamic Republic president,” Lisa Daftari, Middle East analyst and editor-in-chief at The Foreign Desk, told Fox News.  “It sends a clear message that Israel does not differentiate between the Islamic Republic and its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah.” “We have seen Israel conduct very targeted and strategic hits against key players in the Islamic Republic such as nuclear scientists,” Daftari continued. “We’ve also seen Israel conduct targeted hits on weapons depots and other critical infrastructures in Iran, Syria, Yemen and Lebanon. “Given the numerous threats that surround Israel, it has been forced to use its military and intelligence capabilities to pinpoint direct threats and to strategically eliminate them. We assume at this point that the assassination of Haniyeh was made by the same calculations.” Hamas said Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.” “Hamas declares to the great Palestinian people and the people of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free people of the world, brother leader Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” the statement said. The group, in another statement, cited Haniyeh as saying that the Palestinian cause has “costs” and “we are ready for these costs: martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, and for the sake of God Almighty, and for the sake of the dignity of this nation.” Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip five years ago and was living in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yehya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the Oct. 7 attack against Israel.’s civilians and terrorists. BlackMask Pod Cast:

Don’t Mess With GODS Chosen People

The IDF confirms it carried out an airstrike in Lebanon’s capital Beirut a short while ago. According to the military, the strike targeted the Hezbollah commander behind the deadly rocket attack on Majdal Shams and other deadly attacks on Israel. There are no changes to instructions for Israeli civilians as of yet, the IDF says. The IDF says it will provide further details soon.

United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday that he believes that an all-out war between Hezbollah and Israel is “not inevitable” after an alleged militant group’s attack on the Golan Heights, which killed 12 Israeli citizens. Speaking at a press conference in Manila, Austin stressed that Washington seeks to see the Israel-Hezbollah conflict resolved by diplomatic means. Previously, the Associated Press reported that Hezbollah started to move “smart precision-guided missiles” for potential use against Israel after Israel’s security cabinet authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to decide when and how the country will respond to Hezbollah’s deadly attack..

• Netanyahu met for hours with security officials late Sunday
• We ‘don’t want to see the conflict escalate,’ Blinken says

The US and other world powers sought to prevent Israel and Hezbollah’s conflict turning into a full-blown war after a rocket attack that killed several children in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met security officials for several hours late Sunday to decide on the type and timing of Israel’s response to Saturday’s strike  which killed 12 Druze youngsters at a football field and risked triggering the all-out conflict with Hezbollah that’s been feared for months. While Israel has said it will react forcefully, it didn’t launch major strikes on Lebanon overnight and there are signs Netanyahu wants to allow efforts for a cease-fire deal with Hamas in Gaza to progress.

Several Israeli news outlets reported the government was seeking a “limited but significant” action that would send a message but not spiral out of control. So far, Israel’s military has not called up extra reservists or put the north of the country on an increased state of alert. The prime minister sent the head of Mossad, Israel’s external-intelligence agency, to Rome on Sunday to speak with mediators in the Israel-Hamas war, including Qatar and the US. Netanyahu said “negotiations on the main issues will continue in the coming days.” NAN:

Endless Stupidity War Without End

“If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood shed;
if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too costly; you may
come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.”

― Winston S. Churchill

• Oil prices increased after a rocket attack on the Golan Heights heightened fears of a wider Middle East conflict.
• Concerns about weakening Chinese oil demand partially offset the upward pressure on prices.
• Israel’s stance on a potential ceasefire with Hamas adds complexity to the geopolitical situation.

Crude oil prices started to trade this week with a gain as a rocket strike on the Golan Heights rekindled fears of a conflict escalation in the Middle East. Prices remain near a six-week low, per Bloomberg, but the trend is positive, with Chinese economic data alleviating concerns about demand in the world’s largest oil importer. The latest data was about industrial profits for June, which showed a monthly acceleration. “Concerns around China’s economy have broadly weighed on energy commodity prices,” Vivek Dhar, an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, told Bloomberg. “Demand concerns, though, will likely give way to rising geopolitical risks in the Middle East early this week.” On Saturday, a rocket strike on the Israel-annexed Golan Heights killed more than a dozen people. Hezbollah denied responsibility for the attack but the Israeli government has threatened retaliation against the Lebanon-based group, sparking the latest round of escalation fears. Last week, oil prices logged their third weekly loss in a row, mostly on demand concern about China as refinery run data pointed towards weakening demand for oil in the country as did figures showing an annual decline in imports of the commodity. Fuel imports into China also fell, by 11%, over the first half of the year, reinforcing the perception of weakening overall demand. Still, it looks like geopolitics will be the leading factor for oil prices this week. “Worries over escalating tensions in the Middle East prompted fresh buying, but gains were limited by lingering concerns of weakening demand in China,” Fujitomi Securities analyst Toshitaka Tazawa told Reuters earlier today. Besides the latest flare-up in violence in the Middle East, Israel appears to have reconsidered its stance on a prospective ceasefire with Hamas and now wants changes to be made to the ceasefire plan. This has created complications in the ceasefire talks, according to a Reuters report that cited an unnamed Western official and two unnamed Egyptian sources. NN:  See BlackMask Market News and Commentary Titled: The Hezbollah Rockets’ Red Glare, the bombs Bursting in Air

Oil dipped as algorithmic traders took advantage of market uncertainty, while traders weighed Chinese demand against falling US stockpiles. West Texas Intermediate fell to settle near $77 a barrel, capping the largest weekly decline since the beginning of May. Prices have struggled recently amid selling pressure from trend-following commodity trading advisers and a wider retreat in equity markets earlier this week. Those factors have added to concerns about Chinese growth after Beijing cut rates this week in a bid to stimulate the economy of the world’s largest crude importer.

Still, data this week showed a fourth drop in US inventories, which have declined to the lowest since February. Timespreads continue to point to tight near-term conditions. These mixed signals have kept futures locked in a roughly $4 trading band this week.

“We need a positive catalyst and right now inventory draws are expected and not providing enough of a reason to buy this dip,” said Rebecca Babin, senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth. Crude remains modestly higher year-to-date, helped by supply cutbacks from the OPEC+ alliance and expectations for lower US interest rates. Market watchers, however, are now split over whether the producer cartel will ease their curbs next quarter, with an online monitoring committee meeting scheduled for Aug. 1