US refuses to place blame on Israel for Hamas leader’s assassination and won’t say what effects will be

The Biden administration has repeatedly denied US involvement or knowledge in theapparent assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, a political leader of Hamas heavily involved in ceasefire negotiations.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke toChannel News Asia on Wednesday during a two-day stop in Singapore as part of a weeklong swing through southeast Asia, making some of the first comments from a high-ranking American official regarding the death of Haniyeh, who was reportedly killed in Tehran along with an Iranian security guard late Tuesday evening Washington time.

“Well, I’ve seen the reports, and what I can tell you is this: first, this is something we were not aware of or involved in,” said the US’s top diplomat. He added: “It’s very hard to speculate, and I've learned never to speculate, on the impact one event may have on something else. So I can't tell you what this means."

He would go on to reiterate the US’s position that it would work to try and prevent the conflict in Gaza from escalating into a regional war.

At the daily State Department press briefing in Washington, however, reporters pressed further on the issue and drew a semi-heated response from Vedant Patel, the agency’s deputy spokesman.

Patel was questioned repeatedly on various issues related to the impact of the killing and refused to speculate as to whether Israel was responsible for carrying out the attack. The Israeli government has not claimed credit for the killing nor publicly denied it; Hamas and Iranian officials have meanwhile both insisted that Israel is behind Haniyeh’s killing.

Blinken says he doesn't know what the assassination of Haniyeh means for the ceasefire negotiations. Feel like it's the Secretary of State's job to know these