Lankford Reacts to Death of Hamas Leader, Continues Pressure on Iran

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WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) shared a video reaction after the overnight news of the death of Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh who was killed in Iran. Lankford is co-founder and co-chair of the Senate Abraham Accords Caucus, and after the Joint Meeting of Congress with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last week, he called for continued pressure on Iran. Earlier this year, he made a trip to Israel where he visited towns that border the Gaza strip, toured Kibbutz Nir Oz, met with the survivors and families of the hostages of the October 7 massacre, visited the Nova Festival site and spent a day along the border with Lebanon. 

Transcript

Senator James Lankford here. There’s some breaking news from overnight, from the death of Ismail Haniyeh, that is the senior political leader for Hamas, who died in Tehran last night when he was attending the events ‘celebrating the new leadership in Iran,’ which is basically the same leadership they’ve always had. Khamenei is the one that’s still the Supreme Leader there. This is another reminder, yet again, that Hamas is really connected to Iran. Their funding stream is through Iran, that Hamas cannot carry out the attacks against Israel without Iranian backing—same with Hezbollah—that nothing happens in that region, attacking Israel and destabilizing the whole region, without Iran’s engaging. So whether it’s the Houthis in Yemen, whether it’s Hamas in Gaza, or whether it’s Hezbollah in Lebanon, it is all backed by Iran.

And we have yet another reminder of that with the senior Hamas leadership being in Iran, and that’s where he faced his end. So continue to be able to pray for peace in the entire area, as we see some very difficult days ahead for Israel and for the entire region. We pray for safety for all individuals, civilian and military alike, and for an end to all the fighting. But we certainly desire to see an end to terrorism in the area as well.

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