News - Middle East: The chief commander of the Iranian Army has praised the appointment of Yahya Sinwar as the new political leader of Hamas, warning that the Israeli regime will soon be met with a "strong response" over the assassination of the Palestinian resistance movement’s chief Ismail Haniyeh.

Major General Abdolrahim Mousavi made the statement on Wednesday, a day after Hamas selected 61-year-old Sinwar as the head of the Gaza-based resistance group following the targeted killing of Haniyeh in the Iranian capital of Tehran last week.

Lauding Sinwar as a “great combatant in the contemporary era,” Mousavi said, “This appointment shows the path that the Palestinian fighters and Hamas intend to continue treading on, so that the Zionist regime will have no hope for its own future in this way, and God willing, we will see the collapse of the regime.”

Stressing that success cannot be achieved without struggle and sacrifice, the Iranian Army chief said, “The Zionist regime will soon receive a strong and definitive response, and there is no doubt about it.”

Mousavi pointed to the Israeli assassination of Haniyeh and said, “All this shows that when a criminal gang that does not adhere to any law, brazenly and shamelessly carry out such trivial acts that are against all laws, contradictions, beliefs and customs; It is clear and self-evident that they themselves have realized the speed of their fall very well and with such actions they want to save themselves from the mire, which will definitely not happen.”

Haniyeh was killed in an attack on his accommodation in the Iranian capital on July 31, a day after he attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.

Sinwar was a key architect of the surprise Operation al-Aqsa Storm that Hamas-led resistance groups launched against the Tel Aviv regime last October in response to its decades-long campaign of oppression and devastation against Palestinians.

Iran, Belarus against expansion of NATO

Mousavi also met with Commander of the Belarusian Air Force and Air Defense Andrei Lukyanovich on Wednesday.

Mousavi appreciated Minsk’s “courageous and independent” stance on the assassination of Haniyeh, saying, “Belarus has a special, strategic position and a strong barrier against the expansion of NATO. We and the countries of the region are also against the expansion of NATO.”

The Iranian Army commander referred to the unilateral sanctions imposed by the West against the country since the victory of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, saying, "We tried to make the most of such threats and not make the defense of our country dependent on external powers."

Lukyanovich, for his part, called for the expansion and deepening of military relations between Minsk and Tehran, and benefiting from the “valuable experiences of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Lukyanovich also stressed that Belarus is against the US unilateralism and the expansion of NATO.