Tehran will retaliate

Iranian diplomats say Tehran will retaliate for the assassination of Hamas' political chief

From CNN's Artemis Moshtaghian and Niamh Kennedy

Senior Iranian diplomats say their country will respond to the killing of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

“The response to an assassination will indeed be special operations — harder and intended to instill deep regret in the perpetrator,” Iran’s UN Mission in New York posted on X.

The country’s ambassador to Lebanon, Mojtaba Amani, doubled down on a message from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, saying a response is “definitely coming.”

Speaking in Beirut, Amani stressed that Tehran was not trying to “expand the perimeter” of Israel’s war in Gaza, but said: “Iran in return will not allow this region to be prey to the joint U.S. and Israeli administrations.”

Historic tensions: A regional powerhouse, Iran has long been accused of arming and training an axis of militias in the Middle East – including Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – in an effort to broaden its influence across the Middle East.

Fighting in Gaza has brought a longstanding shadow war between Israel and Iran into the open. Though the Israeli military declined to comment on Haniyeh’s killing, it launched a relentless bombing campaign on Gaza, with the stated aim of eliminating Hamas, after the October 7 attacks on Israel.