Killing of Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh-Former Scottish diplomat  demands to dismantle Israel

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during a Great March of Return protest along Gaza’s boundary with Israel in May 2018. (Mahmoud Khattab/APA images)

Four months after Israel bombed and killed three of his sons, two grandchildren, his sister and around 10 other relatives, charismatic Palestinian Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, was assassinated  by Israel on Wednesday July 31  in Tehran where he was attending the inauguration of the new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian.  

 Haniyeh’s son Abdul Salam Haniyeh said that his father said’ after surviving four assassination attempts  “Allah has granted him the martyrdom that he always wished for.”

 Addressing the funeral ceremony the head of the Hamas movement abroad, Khaled Meshaal, reiterated   that the movement “will not recognise Israel” and that: “Killing one of our leaders only makes our people stronger”.

“We will not compromise on our principles, nor will we recognise Israel. Our people will remain committed to our national unity and will follow the path of jihad, resistance and restoring our rights. The loss of our brother (Haniyeh) is great, but our enemies do not know that the blood of the martyrs shortens the path to freedom and victory.”stated Meshall .

Israel was established  in violation all laws on the robbed Palestinian lands by US,UK, and Europe to serve as their killing machine to destabilize Middle East  Thus history of Israel  is history of massacres and genocides of Palestinians.

As pointed out by  WSWS website  Haniyeh’s  killing was aimed at humiliating Iran, destabilizing its leadership, undermining confidence in its security forces and  forcing it to respond, providing Israel with a pretext for still more aggression. 

Ismail Hainyeh, chief negotiator in the protracted, on-again off-again Gaza war peace negotiations  to end  savagery unleashed by  Netanyahu  described as the   butcher in chief . For an Israeli government that is pursuing genocide and is responsible—according to The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals—for at least 186,000 deaths during the Gaza War, there are truly no limits. Still, the execution of Haniyeh, represents a new level of lawlessness and brutality in international relations. 

In killing Ismail Haniyeh Netanyahu killed the fraudulent peace talks which US and Europe exploited to give enough  time to Israel to  slaughter  Palestinians and destroy   Gaza.

“How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side?”  rightly asked Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who has hosted the peace negotiations.

Describing Israel as a nihilist state Scottish author, human rights campaigner, journalist, and former diplomat.  Craig Murray said ‘the apartheid state appears to have no objective other than violence and an urge for desolation. For me it is now axiomatic that there is no two state solution and that apartheid Israel must be completely dismantled as an entity. I believe that more and more people around the entire globe believe that now. And if we have to dismantle our own political and media classes to get there, so be it.

 He added that Israel has also taken a policy decision that the mass rape of detainees by soldiers — and, somewhat strangely, homosexual rape in particular — is acceptable in war and not to be punished.

Ironically Israel has also underlined its genocidal intent in Gaza by proving that it has the technical ability to carry out targeted attacks, and that the flattening of entire cities with 2,000lb bombs and the massacre of tens of thousands of innocents has been a policy choice.

The Western media appears paralyzed by this. I have seen virtually no serious comment or analysis. Nor has anybody pointed out the contrast between Israel’s lies about mass rape on Oct. 7 and Israel’s now-admitted policy of tolerating rape of detainees.

The political class seems even more paralyzed than the media class. Caught in their commitment to Zionism — basically bought and paid for – they have nothing to say about these incredible events more sensible than Kamala Harris’ zombie-like incantation of “Israel’s right to self-defence.”

The British Foreign Office has failed to produce its promised considered reaction to the ICJ Opinion on the illegality of Israeli occupation, let alone responded sensibly to Israel’s crazed paroxysm of destruction this week. said Craig Murray

 Israel’s fascist ministers were openly jubilant. Though condemned the killing, Israeli stooge Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can’t be unhappy  at the killing of Ismail Haniyeh as in the case of  Saudi, Egyptian, Jordanian and UAE complicit  in the  slaughter of Palestinians . Abbas who attended Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres’ funeral failed to attend Ismail Haniyeh’s funeral. 

British columnist David Hearst said Netanyahu is trying to drag Iran and Hezbollah into a regional war that his army has no chance of winning .In killing Ismail Haniyeh,   Netanyahu has sent the clearest message yet to Iran and the resistance movements that he wants a regional war.

Palestinian journalist and media consultant Ramzy Baroud, said  Haniyeh, has succeeded in forging and strengthening ties with Russia, China  and other countries beyond the US-Western political domain.  

By killing Haniyeh, a political leader who has essentially served the role of a diplomat, Israel demonstrated the extent of its desperation and the limits of its military failure. Considering the criminal extent to which Israel is willing to go, such desperation could eventually lead to the regional war that Israel has been trying to instigate, even before the Gaza war.

Hailing from a family of refugees expelled from al-Jura, which today makes up part of the Israeli port city of Ashkelon in historic Palestine during the Nakba in 1948 , Haniyeh was born in Gaza in 1962  at Al-Shati, where he was raised.  Al Shati  is one of eight camps for Palestinian refugees established by the United Nations for Palestinians in the aftermath of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, known to Palestinians as the Nakba when 750,000 people were forced from their homes during the war that led to the creation of the  artificial fascist state of Israel

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 When the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, was born out of the womb of the Palestinian Muslim Brotherhood organisation in December 1987,Haniyeh was   about   25 years. Yet, like many of his Islamic comrades, he was born a leader.  He ascended through the ranks of Hamas, starting as the secretary to the group’s founder, Ahmed Yassin, and eventually leading its political bureau. Haniyeh  served as the fourth Palestinian prime minister and the third political leader of Hamas  

Throughout his youth, Haniyeh developed a close relationship with Hamas’s founder and spiritual leader, Ahmed Yassin. Haniyeh became his personal secretary. Following the assassination  of Yassin and his successor, Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, in 2004, Haniyeh became one of the group’s senior leaders. Ends

Latheef Farook-Senior journalist based in Colombo-Sri Lanka

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