TEHRAN – Iranian poured into the streets in Tehran on Thursday morning to join the funeral procession of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as Iran weighs its options after promising to avenge his assassination, Al Jazeera reported.

The body of Haniyeh was marched amid chants in the capital. Flags of Palestine, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Hamas were seen as organisers handed out posters of Haniyeh.

Banners honoured the Palestinian leader and the martyr Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who was assassinated in a United States drone strike in Baghdad in 2020, among others.

“Israel will definitely regret assassination”

In remarks on Thursday, Iran’s military chief Major General Mohammad Baqeri asserted that the Israeli regime “will definitely regret” its recent assassination of the Hamas leader.

The Armed Forces Chief of Staff made the remarks while attending the funeral procession in honor of the Hamas political chief.

The assassination claimed the lives of Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards in the Iranian capital on Wednesday. The Palestinian resistance leader had reached the city to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

‘Resistance front resolved to take revenge on Israel for crimes’

The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) also said on Thursday that Israel’s recent crimes in the region provoke more wrath among the resistance fighters to take revenge against the occupation regime.

Major General Hossein Salami made the remark in a message on Thursday to commemorate an Iranian military advisor, identified as Milad Bidi, who has been named among the victims of a recent Israeli assassination operation against Lebanon’s capital Beirut that claimed the life of a senior commander of the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah as well.

Bidi was martyred on Tuesday when the attack targeted the building accommodating  Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.