Jordan: Israel undermined the efforts of the mediators by assassinating Ismail Haniyeh

On Thursday, Jordan accused Israel of undermining the mediators' efforts to end the war on the Gaza Strip, by assassinating the "main interlocutor" in the negotiations, Ismail Haniyeh.

On Wednesday, Hamas announced the assassination of the head of its political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh (62 years old). As a result of a missile strike that targeted his residence during a visit to the Iranian capital, Tehran.

While Hamas and Tehran held Israel responsible for his assassination, the latter remained silent, even if its Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hinted that Tel Aviv had carried out this attack.

During a press conference in Amman with Luxembourg Foreign Minister Xavier Bettel, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi warned Thursday that “the situation is sliding towards the abyss,” according to Anadolu’s correspondent.

He added, "The future of the region should not depend on the crude retaliation of the Israeli Prime Minister (Benjamin Netanyahu)."

The UN Security Council called for “the rogue state of Israel not to be allowed to impose further destruction on the region,” stressing that “the first step to reducing the escalation is to stop the brutal barbaric war in Gaza.”

With American support, Israel has been waging a war on Gaza since October 7, 2023, which has resulted in more than 130,000 Palestinians killed and wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing, amid massive destruction and deadly famine.

Al-Safadi added, "The Israeli government does not want peace," and "the assassination of the head of Hamas's political bureau is an escalatory crime that represents a clear violation of international law."

He added that Tel Aviv "undermined all the facts by assassinating the main interlocutor (Haniyeh) in the negotiations."

For months before Haniyeh's assassination, Israel and Hamas conducted faltering indirect negotiations to reach a ceasefire and prisoner exchange agreement, mediated by Egypt and Qatar and with the participation of the United States.

Repeatedly, the Palestinian factions accused Israel and its ally, the United States, of not wanting to end the war now, and of trying to buy time through negotiations, in the hope that Tel Aviv would achieve gains in the fighting.

Al-Safadi urged the international community to take measures to “restrain this Israeli aggression... We cannot and cannot allow the agenda of this extremist government in Israel to push the region towards more destruction.”

While Beitel stressed that Luxembourg “believes in settling the Palestinian issue according to the two-state solution (Palestinian and Israeli), and ending the war on the Gaza Strip... We encourage peace.”

According to Hebrew media reports on Thursday, Israel is anticipating a retaliatory response from Iran, Hamas, or Hezbollah, whether individually or together at the same time and with the help of other parties.

Before Haniyeh's assassination, on Tuesday, Israel assassinated the prominent leader of Hezbollah, Fouad Shukr (63 years old), through an air strike on a building in Beirut, which also claimed the lives of 6 other people, including 2 children and 3 women, in addition to dozens of wounded civilians.

In "solidarity with Gaza", Lebanese and Palestinian factions in Lebanon, most notably Hezbollah, have been exchanging daily bombings with the Israeli army across the dividing "Blue Line" since October 8, resulting in hundreds of deaths and injuries, most of them on the Lebanese side.

Source: Anatolia