Secretary of State Antony Blinken denied any U.S involvement in the overnight assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Blinken, who is currently in the Pacific region visiting regional leaders with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, told Channel News Asia the U.S. was “not aware of or involved in” the assassination attempt.
Haniyeh was essentially Hamas’s foreign diplomat, given he was not based in Gaza, who met with allies in Tehran at the time of his assassination. He was leading Hamas’s negotiations for a ceasefire deal, which is now even more in question.
“It’s profoundly in the interest of putting things in a better path,” Blinken said of a deal. “We’ll continue to work at that everyday.”
