Jordan says Israel turned ‘rogue state’ with Haniyeh assassination, calls on UN to intervene

Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi says that Israel has turned “rogue” state with its “assassination” of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and needs to be stopped.

He says the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’s politburo, is a clear sign that Israel has decided to undermine the US, Egypt and Qatar-backed hostage-ceasefire talks.

“Yesterday, Israel assassinated Ismail Haniyeh. He was the one who was negotiating the exchange deal. So how on earth is a country that wants to conclude a deal killing the main interlocutor in those negotiations?” Safadi tells a news conference.

“So when Netanyahu decided and sent his missiles to assassinate Haniyeh in Iran in violation of the sovereignty of another country and bringing escalation to a very high level, is that somebody who wants the deal to work?

“And all the work that has been done by Egypt, Qatar, and the US to bring a deal that would have brought a ceasefire, that would have released the hostages, that would have released prisoners, Israel decided to undermine all that.”

Israel has not commented on the assassination, though both Iran and Hamas said it was the result of an Israeli air strike in Tehran before dawn yesterday. The New York Times reported a short while ago that Haniyeh was killed by a sophisticated, remote-controlled bomb that was smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse he was staying in, not a missile strike.

Safadi demands action by the international community to rein Israel in.

“The [UN] Security Council must not allow a state that has turned rogue to impose more wars and more destruction on the region.”