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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Hamas calls for 'day of rage' for group leader's burial

Haniyeh to be buried in Qatar today after a public funeral held in Tehran
Iranians attend funeral procession for Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran
Iranians attend funeral procession for Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran
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Doha: Hamas called for a "day of furious rage" on Friday, coinciding with the burial of its slain leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar.


Hamas in a statement on Thursday encouraged an outpouring of public anger following Haniyeh's killing in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel, as well as to protest the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip.


"Let roaring anger marches start from every mosque" following Friday prayers, the group said. The coffin of Haniyeh arrived on Thursday in Doha after a public funeral in Iran, Qatar-based network Al Jazeera reported.


Haniyeh, who had resided in exile in the Gulf state with other members of the Palestinian group's political office, is to be buried in Qatar on Friday following prayers at the Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque, Doha's largest mosque.


Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed on Wednesday in a pre-dawn strike on their accommodation in Tehran, Iran's Revolutionary Guards said, in an attack that has stoked fears of a wider regional conflict.


Hamas called on "the masses of our revolutionary people in the occupied West Bank" to show their support for Palestinians in Gaza, "affirming our commitment to our land and national rights, and confronting the (Israeli) occupation's plans".


Crowds of mourners gathered in Tehran on Thursday during funeral events for the Hamas leader, with the Islamic Republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei leading prayers.


Iran's state TV showed the coffins of Haniyeh and his bodyguards covered in Palestinian flags during the ceremony attended by senior Iranian officials.


President Masoud Pezeshkian and Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief, General Hossein Salami, were present. Haniyeh had been visiting Tehran for Pezeshkian's inauguration ceremony on Tuesday.


Senior Hamas figure Khalil al Hayya, the movement's foreign relations chief, vowed during the funeral ceremony that "Ismail Haniyeh's slogan, 'We will not recognise Israel,' will remain an immortal slogan" and "we will pursue Israel until it is uprooted from the land of Palestine."


Iran's conservative parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said Iran "will certainly carry out the supreme leader's order (to avenge Haniyeh.)"


"It is our duty to respond at the right time and in the right place," he said in a speech with crowds chanting "Death to Israel, Death to America!"


The caskets, with a black-and-white pattern resembling a Palestinian keffiyeh scarf, were borne on a flower-bedecked truck through leafy streets where cooling water mists sprayed the flag-waving crowds.


Khamenei, who has the final say in Iran's political affairs, said after Haniyeh's death that it was "our duty to seek revenge for his blood as he was martyred in the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran".


The Islamic Republic has not yet officially published any information on the exact location of the strike. — AFP


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