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The Guardian
Middle East crisis live: Iran vows ‘severe’ revenge against Israel as US deploys jets and warships to region
By Tom Ambrose,
5 hours ago
A portrait of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is displayed during a demonstration in the Lebanese city of Sidon. Photograph: Mahmoud Zayyat/AFP/Getty Images
12.53pm BST
Iranian revenge for Haniyeh assassination in Tehran will be severe, IRG says
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards has said that Israel killed Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh using a “short-range projectile” launched from outside of his accommodation in Tehran.
An IRG statement read:
This terrorist operation was carried out by firing a short-range projectile with a warhead of about 7 kilograms - causing a strong explosion - from outside the accommodation area.
It added that Israel was “supported by the United States” in the attack.
Haniyeh was killed early Wednesday in the Iranian capital where he was attending the swearing-in of the new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran and Hamas have vowed to retaliate.
The IRG repeated their insistence that Haniyeh would be avenged and that Israel would receive “a severe punishment at the appropriate time, place and manner”.
Updated at 1.16pm BST
12.43pm BST
An American-Israeli man deployed in Gaza with a combat engineering unit of Israel’s armed forces posted videos online that show indiscriminate fire at a destroyed building and the detonation of homes and a mosque.
One video posted by the man, Bram Settenbrino, and filmed from the shooter’s viewpoint, shows dozens of rounds being fired into the ruins of a building. Another video shows what appears to be an armored vehicle’s fire-control system trained on a mosque before it is razed to the ground. Others depict the detonation of several homes as soldiers cheer.
It is not clear whether Settenbrino personally filmed the videos or was involved in the acts depicted in them, but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Settenbrino did not dispute the videos’ authenticity. The videos recently went viral on X, drawing accusations that they showed “ war crimes ”. Settenbrino wrote in a message to the Guardian that the videos were “taken out of context” but declined to elaborate. “I have not committed any war crimes whatsoever,” he added.
After the Guardian reached out to Settenbrino and his family, his father published a response attributed to his son through Arutz Sheva, a news site associated with the settler right. “The machine gun fire video in question was suppressive fire in an area cleared of civilians after my team was attacked by Hamas terrorists from that area. The mosque that was blown up was being used to house armed terrorists and weapons stockpiles and used as a base to attack IDF soldiers.”
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed and 91,128 injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since 7 October , the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank killed a commander in the Palestinian armed group Hamas on Saturday, Hamas media reported, while Palestinian news agency WAFA said four other men were also killed. The identities of the others were not clear, according to the WAFA report, which cited health officials. The Israeli military said it had carried out an airstrike against a militant cell around the West Bank city of Tulkarm.
The US military has announced that it will deploy additional fighter jets and navy warships to the Middle East, the Pentagon said on Friday , as Washington braces for Iran and its regional allies to make good on a promise to respond to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. After the back-to-back assassinations of Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut the evening before, international diplomats have scrambled to head off a fully-fledged regional war.
France has urged its citizens to leave Iran and Cyprus and said it had expanded plans to support a large-scale evacuation from the region if the war expands. The island nation helped tens of thousands of people leave during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Mourners gathered in Doha on Friday to hold funeral prayers for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as Iran and its regional allies vowed to retaliate against Israel . With the bodies of Haniyeh and his bodyguard in coffins draped with Palestinian flags, men knelt and prayed while senior leaders of Hamas’ Qatar-based political office paid their respects to Haniyeh’s family.
Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the deputy Turkish ambassador for a reprimand on Friday after Turkey’s embassy in Tel Aviv lowered its flag to half mast in response to the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. “The State of Israel will not tolerate expressions of mourning for a murderer like Ismail Haniyeh,” foreign minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Amid fears of wider Middle East conflict, Poland has advised its citizens against travelling to Lebanon , Israel and Iran, according to updated guidance published on Friday. “In connection with a growing number of Polish tourists visiting Lebanon, Israel and Iran, we want to repeat that we have long advised against any kind of travel to this region,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on the social media platform X.
The leader of Hezbollah has said that the Lebanese group’s conflict with Israel has entered “a new phase” after the back-to-back assassinations of a senior commander and Hamas’s political chief that risk plunging the Middle East into a regional war. In a televised address broadcast to about 1,000 mourners at the Beirut funeral of Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Fuad Shukur, Hassan Nasrallah vowed that the powerful Shia militia would seek revenge.
US president Joe Biden said on Thursday the killing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh was not helpful for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza. Biden said he had a direct conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday, Reuters reported. He made the comments at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where a plane carrying detainees released by Russia landed late on Thursday.
11.44am BST
11.13am BST
If you want to understand the complicated situation in the Middle East, you need to start with two basic sets of facts, which are the foundation for everything else.
The first is that Israelis are civilized people, just like westerners. You should believe whatever the Israeli government says, because they are obviously not going to lie. If an Israeli soldier or settler commits a terrible act, they’re not considered a reflection on the state as a whole; they’re a bad apple who will be held accountable. Even if the data shows they are rarely held accountable. The bottom line: Israelis are good people who want peace; any violence they commit is justified because they have an absolute right to self-defense.
Palestinians, meanwhile, and Arabs more generally, are seen as barbarians. Barely human. Not even mammals: more like wasps, caterpillars and spiders – to borrow an analogy from the celebrated New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. You can’t trust a word they say. If a Palestinian does something terrible they are not a “bad apple”, they’re an example of how all Palestinians are rotten to the core. One shouldn’t think of any Palestinian as an innocent civilian – they are all terrorists, even the children. The bottom line: Palestinians are bad people who want war; nothing they do can be justified because they have no right to self-defense.
39,550 Palestinians killed in Gaza offensive, health ministry says
At least 39,550 Palestinians have been killed and 91,128 injured in the Israeli military offensive on Gaza since 7 October , the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
9.41am BST
Standing alongside Donald Trump in Florida a week ago, Benjamin Netanyahu was vague on the latest prospect of a ceasefire in the war in Gaza.
“I hope we are going to have a deal. Time will tell,” the Israeli prime minister said, two days after his controversial address to a joint session of the US Congress.
Throughout his three-day visit to the US, Netanyahu was careful to avoid making any commitment to the deal Biden unveiled on 31 May . While the US insisted publicly that the onus was on Hamas to accept the plan, the administration knew it also needed to pin down Netanyahu personally over his reluctance to commit to a permanent ceasefire.
Yet, according to US reports, it now appears that at the very time Netanyahu was publicly speculating about a deal, a remote-controlled bomb had already been smuggled into a guesthouse in Tehran, awaiting its intended target: Ismail Haniyeh , the senior Hamas leader who was assassinated on Wednesday night.
Haniyeh, reported the New York Times and CNN , was killed by an explosive device placed in the guesthouse, where he was known to stay while visiting Iran and was under the protection of the powerful Revolutionary Guards. Iran and Hamas have blamed Israel for the attack, which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied. It fits a pattern of previous Israeli targeted killings on Iranian soil.
Israeli airstrike kills five in West Bank, including Hamas commander - Palestinian media
An Israeli airstrike on a vehicle in the occupied West Bank killed a commander in the Palestinian armed group Hamas on Saturday, Hamas media reported, while Palestinian news agency WAFA said four other men were also killed.
The identities of the others were not clear, according to the WAFA report, which cited health officials.
The Israeli military said it had carried out an airstrike against a militant cell around the West Bank city of Tulkarm.
Hamas media said a vehicle carrying fighters had been struck and that one of the commanders of its Tulkarm brigades was killed.
8.22am BST
Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the crisis in the Middle East. I’m Tom Ambrose.
The US military has announced that it will deploy additional fighter jets and navy warships to the Middle East, the Pentagon said on Friday , as Washington braces for Iran and its regional allies to make good on a promise to respond to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.
After the back-to-back assassinations of Haniyeh in Tehran on Wednesday and top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut the evening before, international diplomats have scrambled to head off a fully-fledged regional war. Rising tensions have spurred a growing list of major airlines into cancelling flights to Tel Aviv and Beirut, including Lufthansa, Delta and Air India.
It comes as, on Friday, France urged its citizens to leave Iran and Cyprus and said it had expanded plans to support a large-scale evacuation from the region if the war expands. The island nation helped tens of thousands of people leave during the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah.
More on that soon, first here’s a summary of the other main headlines:
Mourners gathered in Doha on Friday to hold funeral prayers for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as Iran and its regional allies vowed to retaliate against Israel . With the bodies of Haniyeh and his bodyguard in coffins draped with Palestinian flags, men knelt and prayed while senior leaders of Hamas’ Qatar-based political office paid their respects to Haniyeh’s family.
Israel’s foreign ministry summoned the deputy Turkish ambassador for a reprimand on Friday after Turkey’s embassy in Tel Aviv lowered its flag to half mast in response to the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. “The State of Israel will not tolerate expressions of mourning for a murderer like Ismail Haniyeh,” foreign minister Israel Katz said in a statement.
Amid fears of wider Middle East conflict, Poland has advised its citizens against travelling to Lebanon , Israel and Iran, according to updated guidance published on Friday. “In connection with a growing number of Polish tourists visiting Lebanon, Israel and Iran, we want to repeat that we have long advised against any kind of travel to this region,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on the social media platform X.
The leader of Hezbollah has said that the Lebanese group’s conflict with Israel has entered “a new phase” after the back-to-back assassinations of a senior commander and Hamas’s political chief that risk plunging the Middle East into a regional war. In a televised address broadcast to about 1,000 mourners at the Beirut funeral of Hezbollah’s second-in-command, Fuad Shukur, Hassan Nasrallah vowed that the powerful Shia militia would seek revenge.
US president Joe Biden said on Thursday the killing of Palestinian Islamist group Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh was not helpful for a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza. Biden said he had a direct conversation with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier on Thursday, Reuters reported. He made the comments at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, where a plane carrying detainees released by Russia landed late on Thursday.
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