Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in an early-morning air strike in Iran, the Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Wednesday, blaming Israel for the attack.
It said Haniyeh, a chief negotiator for Hamas who was based in Qatar, was killed “in a Zionist air strike on his residence in Tehran” after he attended the swearing-in of Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday, along with other Hamas officials and officials from Hizbullah and allied groups.
Iranian media said his bodyguard also died.
Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it was investigating the attack and did not say how it occurred. The Israeli military declined to comment.
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Who was the Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh?
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Hamas says leader Ismail Haniyeh killed by Israeli air strike in Iran
Haniyeh’s death will be seen as a major coup by Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his coalition, which vowed to eliminate Hamas leaders after the group’s October 7th attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people.
Several Israeli ministers have reacted to Haniyeh’s death, although Israel has not formally commented on it yet.
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The heritage minister, Amichay Eliyahu, celebrated his killing, writing on X: “Haniyeh’s death makes the world a little better”.
Amichai Chikli, minister of diaspora affairs and combating anti-Semitism, posted a video of the Hamas leader on X with the caption “Careful What You Wish For”.
“This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said. He said Hamas would continue the path it was following, adding: “We are confident of victory.”
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas strongly condemned the killing of Haniyeh, state news agency Wafa reported.
Palestinian national and Islamic factions called for a general strike and mass demonstrations after the killing.
Pezeshkian said Iran will ‘defend it’s territorial integrity, dignity, honour and pride, and will make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act”. He did not elaborate in his statement that was carried by Iranian media.
Haniyeh, in his early 60s, was key to the ongoing ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas — relaying messages to and from the militant group’s leaders in Gaza.
The news, which came less than 24 hours after Israel claimed to have killed the Hizbullah commander it said was behind a deadly strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, appears to set back chances of any imminent ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
Hizbullah confirmed on Wednesday that Shukr was in the building in the southern suburbs of Beirut targeted by an Israeli air strike, but it did not confirm his fate.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Haniyeh.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday morning he did not think a wider war in the Middle East was “inevitable” after the assassinations. “I think there’s always room and opportunities for diplomacy,” he told reporters on a visit to the Philippines.
US officials have for months been leading a global diplomatic effort to prevent the war in Gaza escalating into a broader and even more dangerous regional conflict. Recently they had been pushing for at least a temporary ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, where Israel has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and wounded over 90,000 since October, according to health authorities in Gaza.
Haniyeh, normally based in Qatar, has been the face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy as the war set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7th has raged in Gaza, where three of his sons were killed in an Israeli air strike.
Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, Haniyeh has moved between Turkey and Qatar’s capital Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the blockaded Gaza Strip and enabling him to act as a negotiator in ceasefire talks or to talk to Hamas’ ally Iran.
The killing of Haniyeh is “an absolutely unacceptable political murder”, a deputy Russian foreign minister told RIA state news agency on Wednesday.
“This is an absolutely unacceptable political murder, and it will lead to further escalation of tensions,” RIA cited deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov as saying. - Agencies