Straight News: What are your particular observations on the fact that Hamas's political leader Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Tehran two days ago, was buried in Qatar on Friday, and Iran held a grand funeral for him the day before?
Guan Yao, Special Commentator: Iran's funeral for Chania on August 1 was of a very high standard and had a strong signal. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Ali Khamenei, the newly sworn in new President Pezeshiziyan, and the Chief of the General Staff of the Iran Armed Forces, General Bagheri, were all present at the funeral.
In fact, Haniyeh made a special trip from Qatar to Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran's new president, but in the end she could not make the way home. For the past two days, the international media has repeatedly published the photo of him and Pezehiqiyang cheering at the inauguration ceremony, but unexpectedly, just a few hours later, he was killed in a hotel explosion in the early hours of the next morning. Footage of the funeral, broadcast on Iran television, showed Khamenei in emotion, wiping away tears several times and hugging Hania's son, who came to attend the funeral. Speaking at the funeral on behalf of the military, General Bagheri also vowed reprisals, threatening to examine "forms of resistance" in return of blood, warning of reprisals that the Zionists deeply regretted.
Also on August 1, another mass funeral took place almost simultaneously on the southern outskirts of the Lebanon capital, Barut, starring the Lebanon Allah Party's top military commander Shukel, who was also the chief aide to Lebanon Allah leader Nasrallah, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday night, just hours after Hania's death.
In this way, the period from late Tuesday night to early Wednesday morning can be called the bloodiest night of the so-called "axis of resistance" fully supported by Iran. Perhaps due to security concerns, Nasrallah himself did not attend Shukr's funeral on Thursday, but in a video address broadcast on a large screen at the funeral, Nasrallah vowed to retaliate against Israel's hunt and that Allah forces would make a "real response," accusing Israel of crossing red lines and entering a new phase of the conflict. Hamas today also called for prayer for Chaniyeh and designated Friday as a "day of rage".
I think this weekend may be the most dangerous window of time, with a much larger all-out war in the Middle East looming. The so-called inside story of the hunt for Chania, which is widely reported by the US and Western media today, is even more like cooking oil in a blazing flame, making the conflict situation more and more tense.
Source: CCTV News
Straight News: What information did the foreign media break about Chania's death, and what does it mean?
Guan Yao: Regarding Haniah's death, yesterday a Hamas political official in Qatar said that he was killed by a missile launched by the Israeli army. There is also a lot of speculation in foreign public opinion about this, believing that the Israeli side may have succeeded in using large drones or fighter planes to launch missiles.
However, a spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) told the media that there had been no additional air strikes on Tuesday night, except for the bombing of the hideouts of the top military commander of the Lebanon Allah Party. Of course, the Israeli army, including the Mossad, the "king of assassination" with the highest media mention, has not yet taken responsibility for Tehran's targeted hunting. And the "missile hunting theory" also has various questions, the first of which is, how exactly did Israel evade Iran's air defense system and carry out such a blatant air strike on the security priorities of the capital Tehran? An analysis of satellite photographs of the site of the Chania collapse by intelligence experts also showed that there were no external traces of the missile strike.
The latest revelations of the United States "New York Times" today surprised the world: Chania died at 2 a.m. local time in Tehran on Wednesday, detonated by a preset bomb. The newspaper quoted five Middle Eastern officials as saying that the explosive device had been smuggled two months earlier to the hotel where Haniye had come to Tehran, which is operated and protected by Iran's armed Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an upscale neighborhood in northern Tehran. The US media quoted two Revolutionary Guard Corps officials who heard the report of the incident as saying that the bomb was remotely detonated, Hania was killed on the spot, and the bodyguard who was in the same room with him was seriously injured. Palestinian Jihad leader Nahalih, who lives next door to Chania, escaped in a thrilling manner and his room was not seriously damaged, suggesting that Chanih was the target of a precisely planned, targeted assassination. United Kingdom's "Daily Telegraph" also disclosed today that Israeli intelligence departments had made internal briefings to the United States and Britain and other major allies afterwards.
But if the "bomb attack theory" is true, I think the impact and impact will be even more serious and lasting than the "missile hunting theory". With such a long time span of hunting and ambushing, how can it be precisely designed and targeted to attack to such an extent? How on earth was the explosive device brought into the hotel and kept it invisible for weeks until it finally detonated? Why is the security system so fragile in a strong, heavily guarded security area? Has the Israeli eyeliner completed its full penetration into Tehran? For this reason, the US media quoted three Iran officials as admitting that this security breach was a "catastrophic failure" of Iran's intelligence and state departments and a "great humiliation" for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Straight News: So do you predict that a full-scale war in the Middle East will detonate?
Guan Yao, Special Commentator: As I said earlier, the situation in the Middle East has reached the most dangerous critical point, and the development of events in the next few days is crucial.
As far as the short-term impact is concerned, the US plan for peace talks is bound to run aground, which means that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will continue or even escalate, and there is no end to the hellish suffering of the people of Gaza. On the same day as the two funerals, Israel also confirmed for the first time that Dayif, the military commander of Hamas in Gaza and believed to have masterminded the large-scale attacks and hostage-taking in October last year, had been killed in last week's airstrikes on Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued his tough rhetoric yesterday after fighting in multiple directions, threatening Israel to be on high alert, which would cost a heavy price for military operations attacking Israel on any front. This means that the Israeli prime minister has been reduced to a de facto "war maniac", at all costs and regardless of the consequences. This also means that the last 100 or so Israeli hostages still being held could be part of the costs and consequences at any time. It is worth noting that today Israel's Haaretz newspaper published an instant commentary on the front page of its website, using this headline - "The assassination of Haniyeh is clearly revealed, the safety of Israel's hostages is not Netanyahu's priority agenda at all"
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali, has also ordered a harsh response to the assassination of Haniyeh. According to an analysis by the Tehran Times, an English-language newspaper in Iran, the last time Khamenei issued a warning of the same intensity to Israel was in April, when Israel attacked the premises of the Iran embassy in Syria and killed many senior military officials. Since then, Iran has launched its first large-scale attack on Israel itself, dispatching attack drones and launching missiles, but Israel claims that the interception rate of cross-border attacks on Iran is as high as 99%. Personally, I think this figure is exaggerated, but it should be an indisputable fact that the vast majority of Iran's drones and missiles missed their targets or crashed halfway. In that military confrontation, countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, France and even Jordan participated in Israeli interception operations or opened airspace to facilitate them. It is worth noting that Iran has made advance forecasts to many countries before launching a large-scale attack, which is considered a key signal that Iran has no intention of escalating the war to make a showy counterattack. Whether the same scene will be repeated again this time deserves great attention.
Author丨Guan Yao, special commentator of Shenzhen Satellite TV's "Live Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan".