Five sources told Reuters that senior Iranian officials will meet representatives of the resistance axis in the region from Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen on Thursday to discuss a possible response to Israel after the assassination of the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran.

This comes in conjunction with the statement of the Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, on Thursday, on the sidelines of the funeral of Haniyeh and his companion Wassim Abu Shaaban in Tehran, that Iran is "currently studying with the axis of resistance a way to avenge the blood of the head of the political bureau of Hamas." Major General Bagheri stressed in this context that "our response is inevitable and there will be different measures and the Zionists will regret what they did," according to what was reported by the conservative Iranian Tasnim News Agency.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry is also currently conducting extensive diplomatic moves in the region, anticipating this response. In the last few hours, the Iranian acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani held intensive diplomatic talks with the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Turkish Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan, the Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal bin Farhan, and the Egyptian Foreign Minister, Badr Abdel Aati.

Iranian officials believe that the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh affected the country's national security and territorial integrity, as well as Iran's image, because Haniyeh was an official guest in the country to participate in the swearing-in ceremony of the new Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, who embraced Haniyeh with great enthusiasm after taking the oath inside the parliament.