Swiss foreign ministry wary of possible Middle East escalation

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran on Tuesday (picture from 2006). Keystone

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has expressed concern after the killing of leading Hamas figure Ismail Haniyeh. And after an Israeli strike in Beirut, the foreign ministry is advising Swiss citizens to leave Lebanon.

The killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran creates “a territorial link to another country”, which increases the likelihood of a regional escalation, Cassis told the Keystone-SDA news agency at a press conference at the Olympic Games in Paris on Wednesday.

The question now was what consequences the killing would have at the regional and supra-regional level – as well as for Europe and Switzerland, Cassis said. For him, the killing corresponds with Israel’s stated aim of wanting to eliminate Hamas, and was therefore to be expected.

A possible regional expansion of the conflict must however be prevented, Cassis said.

+ Read more: our coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian war

He appealed to all actors to hold back with further reactions. Since the start of the war in Gaza last year, Switzerland has attempted to contribute to de-escalation via diplomatic channels, and is working day and night to find a solution. “A diplomatic way out must be found. There is always a way if you really want one,” Cassis said.

Swiss citizens advised to leave Lebanon

On Wednesday afternoon, the foreign ministry advised Swiss nationals in Lebanon to leave the country “by their own means” if this is possible and safe. The ministry also repeated that it continues to advise against travelling to Lebanon.

The news of Haniyeh’s death sent the Middle East into turmoil on Wednesday morning. According to Hamas, Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli attack on his residence in Iran’s capital Tehran. Haniyeh had been chairman of Hamas’ political bureau since 2017.

Just a few hours earlier, Fuad Shukr, a senior commander of the Lebanese Shia militia group Hezbollah, was killed in an airstrike on a suburb of Beirut, according to the Israeli army. Since the start of the Gaza war around ten months ago, a series of Hamas military and political officials have been killed – or are presumed dead.

Translated from German by DeepL/dos

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].