Middle East updates: Hamas blames Israel for leader's death

US national security adviser John Kirby said the killing of Hamas' leader in Iran "doesn't help" negotiations to stop the fighting in Gaza, although he still seemed hopeful for a diplomatic solution. 

"We're obviously concerned," he told reporters, but added that the White House didn't see that the negotiation process "has been completely torpedoed."

"We still believe that this is a worthy endeavor... and a deal can be had," Kirby said.

The United States, which has been mediating for a Gaza truce and a hostage deal along with Qatar and Egypt, had a team in the region on Wednesday for negotiations, he said. 

Kirby also downplayed the risk of further hostilities. "We don't believe that an escalation is inevitable, and there's no signs that an escalation is imminent. But I also said that we watch it very, very closely."

Qatar and Egypt have questioned Israel's political will to calm the tensions, with Doha's prime minister saying the development "makes us ask: How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side?"

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called on "everyone, especially Iran, to exercise restraint and deescalate for the sake of the people in the region." 

She said that in a tense situation such as this, "any decision can either ease tensions or escalate the conflict." 

Baerbock said that during her travels, "it has become clear: most people in Lebanon do not want war." 

She said the Lebanon was "still suffering from the consequences of the 2006 war, the port explosion of 2020, and a dire economic situation." 

"Given the current circumstances, the Federal Government's crisis team at the Federal Foreign Office met today. I once again appeal to all German citizens in Lebanon to leave the country while it is still possible," Baerbock said.

An emergency UN Security Council session after the killing of Hamas' political leader Ismail Haniyeh begins at 4 p.m. local time in New York (2000 UTC/GMT). 

Russia, which holds the Council's rotating presidency, confirmed the session would take place as Iran had earlier requested, with support from representatives of Russia, China and Algeria. 

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres denounced the attacks in Tehran as well as Beirut in the past 24 hours as a "dangerous escalation" in the region.

Senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur was also killed on Tuesday in the outskirts of the Lebanese capital in a strike claimed by Israel. 

"The Secretary-General believes that the attacks we have seen in South Beirut and Tehran represent a dangerous escalation at a moment in which all efforts should instead be leading to a ceasefire in Gaza" and "the release of all Israeli hostages," Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. 

Iran's UN envoy appealed in a letter to the Security Council for all members to "condemn unequivocally and strongly the acts of aggression and terrorist acts" that it blamed on Israel.

He also called for punitive measures including sanctions to be considered.

The US and Switzerland both tigthened their travel advisory status for Lebanon on Wednesday in the aftermath of the killings of senior Hamas and Hezbollah officials in Tehran and Beirut. 

The US State Department raised its Lebanon warning status to level 4, or "do not travel." 

"Do Not Travel to Lebanon due to rising tensions between Hezbollah and Israel. If you are in Lebanon, be prepared to shelter in place should the situation deteriorate," the updated travel advisory said.

"The US Embassy strongly encourages US citizens who are already in Southern Lebanon, near the borders with Syria, and/or in refugee settlements to depart," it said.

Switzerland meanwhile urged any nationals in Lebanon to leave the country. 

"The Federal Deparmtent of Foreign Affairs recommends that Swiss nationals leave the country by their own means, if this seems possible and safe," the foreign ministry said in its updated travel advice. 

"The decision to leave the country is taken voluntarily, at the risk and expense of the person leaving the country." 

It said its embassy in Beirut was still open and would continue to provide its regular services. 

But it warned that if nationals decide to stay in the country against its advice, "Switzerland would be able to provide only limited services, if any, and would have only limited possibilities to provide assistance in an emergency."

Several other countries including Germany have issued similar warnings.

And several commercial airlines have suspended flights to Beirut, with Air France and Dutch low-cost carrier Transavia extending their suspension of flights — which had been due to expire on Wednesday — until Saturday following the killings of Ismail Haniyeh and Fouad Shukur. 

Hezbollah has made its first on-the-record comments confirming that the body of commander Fouad Shukur has been found. 

Shukur was targeted in an airstrike on the southern suburbs of Beirut on Tuesday. 

Israel's military had already said he was killed late on Tuesday. Conflicting off-the-record reports from Lebanon followed.

The Iran-backed Lebanese political and militant group said that its leader, Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, would make a statement at Shukur's funeral on Thursday.

Shukur, thought to be in his 60s, had been a key member of Hezbollah since its foundation in the 1980s.

Israel described him as Hezbollah's most senior military commander and blamed him for an attack on the weekend that killed a dozen children and teenagers in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The attack on Shukur has since been somewhat overshadowed by the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, news of which emerged just a few hours later in the early hours of Wednesday.

Unlike the strike that killed Hamas' Ismail Haniyeh, Israel has claimed responsibility for targeting Shukur.

Iranian political and religious leaders vowed revenge on Wednesday after the death of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an airstrike in Tehran that has been blamed on Israeli. 

Meanwhile, Iranian analysts and commentators on social media were critical of the latest major security shortfall, with the visiting Hamas leader struck as he was in the government's protection in Tehran.

One journalist called it a "total embarrassment" for the country's security apparatus. Israel has not claimed responsibility for the strike. 

DW Asia and DW's Farsi language department compiled this overview of responses in Tehran on Wednesday.

Senior Hamas official Khalil Al-Hayya told a news conference in Tehran that Ismail Haniyeh was hit "directly" by a missile. 

He was in a state guesthouse in Tehran at the time.

Al-Hayya was citing witnesses who he said were with Haniyeh at the time. 

"Now we are waiting for the full investigation from the [Iranian] brothers," he said. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a televised address on Wednesday evening. 

He did not mention the attack on Ismail Haniyeh specifically or claim any Israeli involvement, but he did say Israel had delivered "crushing blows" to Iran's proxies over the last few days, including Hamas and Hezbollah. 

He only referred to the Beirut strike that killed Hezbollah's Fouad Shukur by name.

"Citizens of Israel, challenging days lie ahead," Netanyahu said. "Since the strike in Beirut there are threats sounding from all directions. We are prepared for any scenario and we will stand united and determined against any threat."

Netanyahu said Israel would "exact a heavy price for any aggression against us from any arena." 

Several international news outlets including Reuters and AFP cite sources from Hezbollah as saying the body of the Lebanese militant group's commander Fouad Shukur has been found in rubble in the southern suburbs of Beirut after an Israeli strike Tuesday evening. 

Israel's military said late on Tuesday night that it believed Shukur had been killed.

But there has been no official word from Lebanon, except that search and rescue operations were ongoing, and similar reports on Tuesday citing Hezbollah sources had said that he survived.

Unlike with Shukur, Israel is yet to explicitly claim responsibility for Haniyeh's death.

Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators marched through major West Bank cities like Ramallah and Hebron on Tuesday in protest against Ismail Haniyeh's killing. 

Many of them carried green Hamas flags or wore their headbands. 

They chanted "the people want al-Qassem brigade," in reference to the group's military wing. 

Public displays of support for Hamas in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the West Bank governed by Fatah, are relatively rare. 

Hamas and Fatah have long been at odds over the governance of the two Palestinian territories. 

Qatar's Al Jazeera TV said on Wednesday that its Arabic language reporter Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Ramy Al-Refee were killed in an airstrike on Gaza City. 

The broadcaster said that the strike "targeted a car near the Aidia area, west of Gaza City." 

A colleague of the two dead journalists, Anas al-Sharif, told Al Jazeera that the two men were trying to film near the house of Ismail Haniyeh following his death. 

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said the new deaths increased the total number of journalists killed by Israeli fire since October 7 to 165.

A study published earlier this month by the New York-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists came to a lower tally, but still put the figure, as of July 5, at 108.

In a tweet, Al Jazeera's managing editor Mohamed Moawad said Al-Ghoul was renowned for his "professionalism and dedication" and helped draw the world's attention to the "suffering and atrocities committed in Gaza."

Ismail Haniyeh was born in a Gaza refugee camp in 1962 and attended a United Nations school. He joined Hamas in 1987 at the beginning of a major uprising against Israel known as the first Intifada.

Haniyeh was appointed prime minister of the Palestinian Authority by President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas won a majority of seats in the 2006 legislative elections.

However, Abbas tried to dismiss him when Hamas unleashed a wave of violence to oust his Fatah party from the Gaza Strip. Haniyeh refused to step down and Hamas continued to rule the Gaza Strip, while Fatah remained responsible for the occupied West Bank.

Haniyeh moved to Qatar to live in exile in 2016. In 2017, he was elected head of Hamas' political bureau, succeeding Khaled Mashaal.

Israel had vowed to kill him following the October 7 Hamas attack on Israeli civilians.

The Hamas militant group is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and Germany, among others.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Wednesday called for restraint to avoid plunging the Middle East "into chaos," following the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran that the militant group has blamed on Israel. 

"The central issue now is to prevent a regional conflagration and not plunge the entire region into chaos," Baerbock said.

She called on all parties in the conflict to "exercise maximum restraint and de-escalate in the interest of the people in the region."

Baerbock also pointed a finger at Hamas, "a terrorist organization that has carried out countless cruel and deadly attacks on Israel."

The European Union "has a principled position of rejecting extrajudicial killings," said Peter Stano, the EU's spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy.

He said the EU was following developments around the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas' political wing, closely.

"We call on all parties to exert maximum restraint and avoid any further escalation. No country and no nation stand to gain from a further escalation in the Middle East," Stano said in a statement to DW Brussels correspondent Rosie Birchard.

He added the EU and others had listed Hamas as a terrorist organization, and that the ICC Prosecutor had been seeking an arrest warrant against Ismail Haniyeh on various charges of war crimes.

The burial of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh will take place in Doha on Friday, following a public funeral ceremony in Tehran the day before, the militant group announced.

Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike on Iran's capital, Tehran, early on Wednesday.

He "will be given an official and public funeral ceremony in the Iranian capital, Tehran, tomorrow," Hamas said in a statement.