Saudi Arabia calls Haniyeh killing a ‘blatant violation’ of Iran’s sovereignty
Comment by deputy FM during extraordinary meeting of Organization of Islamic Cooperation is first reaction by Iran’s regional rival to assassination in Tehran
Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran was a “blatant violation” of Iran’s sovereignty.
The comment by the Saudi deputy foreign minister during an extraordinary meeting of members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) was the first by the kingdom, the region’s major power alongside Iran, since the killing of the Palestinian Islamist leader in the Iranian capital on July 31.
The minister, Waleed Al-Khuraiji, added that Saudi Arabia rejects “any violation of the sovereignty of states or interference in the internal affairs of any country.”
The comments echoed earlier remarks by Gambian Foreign Minister Mamadou Tangara, who chairs the Saudi-based Islamic bloc. He said the “heinous” killing last week of the terror group’s political leader risks tipping the Middle East into “wider conflict.”
A statement issued after the meeting said the OIC “holds Israel, the illegal occupying power, fully responsible for this heinous attack,” which it described as “a serious infringement” of Iran’s sovereignty.
A senior Iranian official said during the same meeting that the Islamic Republic would need to defend itself from Israel, which it blames for Haniyeh’s death last week in Tehran.
Israel has neither claimed nor denied responsibility for the high-profile assassination, which came hours after Israel killed Hezbollah terror group commander Fuad Shukr in Lebanon, following a Hezbollah rocket attack that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights days earlier.
Hamas has since announced its Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar as Haniyeh’s successor.
Iranian and Palestinian officials called for Wednesday’s gathering of the 57-member OIC in the Saudi coastal city of Jeddah, saying the body needed to respond to the killing of the Hamas leader.
Haniyeh’s killing “will not quell the Palestinian cause but rather it amplifies it, underscoring the urgency for justice and human rights for the Palestinian people,” Tangara said.
“The sovereignty and territorial integrity of nation states are fundamental principles underpinning the international order. Respecting these principles has profound implications and their violation equally carries significant consequences,” he continued.
Iran has vowed to respond to Haniyeh’s killing, and the region is bracing for a potential attack on Israel by Iran and/or its proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon, which has also declared that it will respond to Israel’s assassination of Shukr last week.
“Currently, in the absence of any appropriate action by the [United Nations] Security Council against the aggressions and violations of the Israeli regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran has no choice but to use its inherent right to legitimate defense against the aggressions of this regime,” Ali Bagheri, Iran’s acting foreign minister, told the OIC on Wednesday.
Wednesday’s meeting also included discussion of the fighting between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip, in a war that began on October 7 of last year, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
In addition to issuing regular statements condemning civilian deaths in Gaza, OIC leaders gathered with their counterparts from the Arab League in November for a summit that condemned Israeli forces’ “barbaric” actions in Gaza.
The strong statement masked divisions within the assembled group, as some countries proposed threatening to disrupt oil supplies to Israel and its allies as well as severing any economic and diplomatic ties.
Diplomats said at the time that countries that have formal diplomatic ties with Israel, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, came out against the idea.
Saudi political analyst Mohammed bin Saleh al-Harbi told AFP that, for Wednesday’s OIC meeting, “we cannot expect more than condemnation and denunciation.”
