Peter Stano, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs, repeated EU’s call on all parties ‘’to exert maxiumum restraint and avoid any further escalation.’’
‘’I can only recall that the EU and other partners have listed Hamas as a terrorist organization and that the International Criminal Court (ICC° prosecutor was seeking arrest warrant against Ismael Haniye on various charges of war crimes,’’ said Thursday EU spokesperson for foreign affairs Peter Stano.
He was asked during the daily European Commission briefing about a reaction to the killing Wednesday in Tehran of Haniye, ‘’political leader’’ of Hamas.
Stano added that ‘’the EU has also a principle position of rejecting extra-judicial killings and of supporting the rule of law, including in international relations and international criminal justice.’’
As the situation is unfolding, he also repeated the EU’s call on all parties ‘’to exert maxiumum restraint and avoid any further escalation.’’ ‘’Because no country and no nation stands to gain from further escalation in the Middle East and in the wider region,’’ Stano added.
The Israeli government has not commented on the assassination.
Haniyeh, Hamas’s “political” leader, and one of his bodyguards were killed when a missile hit his Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guest house in Tehran on Wednesday.
The Hamas leader was in Iran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian.
Based in the Qatari capital of Doha, Haniyeh was one of the most senior members of Hamas, along with the terror group’s leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar.
The Israeli government has not commented on Haniyeh’s death.
But the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed Thursday that Mohammed Deif, military wing commander and second in command of the Hamas militant group, was killed in an airstrike on Khan Yunis on July 13. The IDF confirmed that Deif was killed along with Rafa’a Salameh, the commander of Hamas’ Khan Yunis Brigade, and other Hamas operatives.
“Deif initiated, planned, and executed the October 7th massacre, in which 1,200 people were killed in southern Israel and 251 hostages abducted into the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said in a statement.
On Tuesday, Hezbollah chief commander Fuad Shukr was killed by a missile in Beirut.