Following Ismail Haniyeh's assassination, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Haniyeh's death would "not pass in vain," and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned that "blood vengeance" for the killing is "certain."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian furthered those threats on Monday, telling a Vatican official in a phone call that the assassination warrants Iran's right to "self defence" and to "respond to an aggressor," Iranian state news agency IRNA reported.

There have been some indications that Iran may abandon plans to attack Israel if a ceasefire deal is reached.
But the country's mission to the United Nations said on Saturday that Tehran's retaliation to Israel's suspected killing of Haniyeh is "totally unrelated to the Gaza ceasefire," adding that it has a right to self-defence.

Iran's UN mission said it hopes that its attack on Israel "will be timed and conducted in a manner not to the detriment of the potential ceasefire."