President Biden and Vice President Harris speak to reporters at Joint Base Andrews late Thursday. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)
Hundreds of mourners attended funeral prayers for slain Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Doha, Qatar, on Friday, amid tight security as the region braced for potential fallout from his death.
In the Qatari capital, dignitaries and other mourners packed into the sandstone Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque to pay their respects. Among the crowd were two of Haniyeh’s possible successors: Khalil al-Hayya, a Hamas senior official and the head of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and former Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal, a close Haniyeh aide.
Haniyeh’s body was buried in Lusail, north of Doha. He had been Hamas’s chief negotiator in talks to end the war in Gaza, which has killed at least 39,000 Palestinians and prolonged the captivity of more than 100 Israelis. The killing escalated tensions across the region, with Iran vowing retaliation for the assassination on its soil, which has been widely attributed to Israel. Israel has so far declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death, though it has acknowledged other recent strikes that killed a senior Hezbollah commander, Fuad Shukr, in Beirut as well as Hamas’s military leader, Mohammed Deif, in Gaza.
When asked Thursday about how the assassination had affected the talks, President Biden said it had “not helped.”
Biden, who was responding to a query from reporters at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland as Americans freed from Russia in a large-scale prisoner exchange deal landed, said that he had a “very direct” conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We had the basis for a cease-fire. He should move on it and should move on it now,” the president said.
According to a White House readout of the call with Netanyahu, Biden also discussed “new defensive U.S. military deployments” as part of “efforts to support Israel’s defense against threats.”
He also “reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security against all threats from Iran, including its proxy terrorist groups Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis,” it said. The U.S. military has previously provided defense support to Israel, including against an attack from Iran in April.
Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said Thursday that the group’s decades-long conflict with Israel had “entered a new stage” after Shukr’s killing. Israel said that strike - which killed at least six other people, including two children - was in response to an attack that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah denied responsibility. In Doha, many of the young men attending prayers Friday wore the black-and-white checked kaffiyeh scarf; some wore Palestinian flags across their shoulders. Inside, mourners stood in rows, behind an imam who led a short prayer over Haniyeh’s body.
Qatari authorities have a complicated relationship with Hamas, one that has made the tiny Persian Gulf nation the target of criticism from Israel and its allies. Qatar maintains that it is hosting the Hamas political office at the request of the United States to better facilitate dialogue, including negotiations over the release of hostages held in Gaza.
Underscoring the group’s tensions with domestic Palestinian factions, in the occupied West Bank on Friday, imams in Palestinian Authority-controlled mosques spoke generally about the week’s “martyrs” but not specifically about Haniyeh’s assassination - a reminder of continuing efforts by authorities there to clamp down on growing support for Hamas. Here’s what to know
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with the United Arab Emirates’ foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, on Thursday to discuss “diplomatic efforts to achieve a cease-fire in Gaza.”
The call, on the same day that funeral ceremonies for Haniyeh and Shukr took place in Tehran and Beirut respectively, also “emphasized the importance of preventing the conflict from escalating,” according to a readout shared by the State Department.
Several airlines have announced further suspensions of their flights to Tel Aviv. Delta, which this week said it was pausing flights between New York and Tel Aviv until Friday, has extended its cancellations until Aug. 9, according to an updated statement. Italy’s ITA Airways, meanwhile, said Thursday that it was suspending flights through Tuesday because of “geopolitical developments in the Middle East and to ensure the safety of its passengers and crews,” according to its website.
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz ordered the summoning of Turkey’s deputy ambassador to Israel for a “severe reprimand,” after the embassy lowered its flag on the day of Haniyeh’s funeral. “The State of Israel will not tolerate expressions of mourning for a murderer like Ismail Haniyeh,” Katz wrote on X. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered a day of mourning Friday over Haniyeh’s killing.
Israeli strikes that killed several World Central Kitchen workers in April were the result of the Israel Defense Forces’ “serious failures” to follow its procedures as well as “errors in decision-making,” an Australian government report found. Canberra is now “pressing Israel to reform its coordination with humanitarian organisations,” a news release said, to ensure the deaths of the six foreign aid workers, including an Australian, and their Palestinian driver “are not in vain and not repeated.” Foreign Minister Penny Wong said the deaths were “inexcusable” and “not a one-off incident,” according to the country’s national broadcaster.
At least 39,480 people have been killed and 91,128 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers. It says 329 soldiers have been killed since the launch of its military operations in Gaza. Miriam Berger in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
