Iran Issues NOTAM After Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei Threatened Israel of 'Direct Attack'

Tehran: Iran on Thursday, July 31, issued several NOTAMs (Notice to Air Missions), hours after Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei ordered a direct strike on Israel in response to the assassination of Hamas Chief Ismail Haniyeh on Iranian soil.

According to a report by The New York Times, Khamenei gave the order at an emergency meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

This comes after Ismail Haniyeh, one of the senior Hamas leaders and his bodyguard, were killed in Iran's Tehran, as per reports.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement confirmed the attack. They stated that it was carried out during the wee hours of Wednesday, adding that a probe into the killing is underway.

This comes a day after Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swear-in ceremony on Tuesday and also met Iran's Supreme Leader.

As of now, Iran also gave no details on how Haniyeh was killed.

Several analysts on Iranian state television began blaming Israel for the attack, which has pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.

However, Israel itself has not commented on the incident yet.

Israel is suspected of running a yearslong assassination campaign targeting several senior Iranian nuclear scientists and others associated with its atomic programme.

(Inputs from AP)