Tehran, Aug 6 (IANS): Iran's Acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani said that Israel's assassination of Hamas Politburo Chief Ismail Haniyeh had undermined regional and international stability and security.

At a meeting with foreign ambassadors and diplomats, Bagheri Kani said that Israel saw the sole way in "warmongering and expansion of conflict among regional countries and among Palestinians," according to a statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Xinhua news agency reported.

He emphasised that the assassinations of Haniyeh and the senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shokor a few hours earlier in Beirut, Lebanon, should not be regarded as unrelated to the developments in the occupied Palestinian territories and regions and that these events were in line with Israel's numerous "terrorist actions" in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Syria.

Haniyeh was attacked while he was Iran's official guest and in the country's legal territory, said Bagheri Kani, condemning the assassination as an "unjustified and illegal violation and aggression" against Iran's sovereignty.

Haniyeh, who had been invited to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday, was killed along with his bodyguard early Wednesday when their residence in Tehran was hit, according to Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, which said Israel had carried out the "terrorist attack" and vowed "a harsh and painful response."