Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran after attending the inauguration of the Iranian president
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and the Palestinian Islamist movement announced on Wednesday, blaming Israel for the attack.
Since October, Hamas has been waging war against Israel in the Gaza Strip, a territory it has governed since 2007, triggered by an unprecedented attack by its fighters on the south of the Hebrew state.
“The brother, the leader, the mujahideen Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the movement, was killed in a Zionist attack on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new Iranian president,” the Palestinian movement said in a statement.
In exile between Turkey and Qatar, the 61-year-old Islamist leader had travelled to Tehran on Tuesday to attend the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president, Masud Pezeshkian.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said in a statement that the attack on his residence claimed the lives of him and one of his bodyguards.
The origin of the attack was still unclear, but was “under investigation,” the agency added in a statement. According to the local Fars news agency, “he was killed by an air shell.”
The Israeli military declined to comment on reports of the Hamas leader’s death.
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«Serious escalation»
Many countries, including Turkey, China, Russia and Qatar, the mediator in the negotiations for a ceasefire in Gaza, have condemned the murder and warned of the risk of the conflict worsening and spreading.
The assassination “could plunge the region into chaos and undermine the chances of peace,” warned the Foreign Ministry of Qatar, where the political leadership of the Palestinian group is based, in a statement.
“This attack also aims to extend the war in Gaza to a regional dimension,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement, condemning the “despicable murder.”
A member of Hamas’ political bureau, Musa Abu Marzuk, said in a statement that “the assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh is an act of cowardice and will not go unpunished.”
Palestinian Authority President and often-rival Mahmoud Abbas joined in the condemnation, urging Palestinians to “stay united, remain patient and stand firm against the Israeli occupation.”
Considered a pragmatist within Hamas, Haniyeh maintained good relations with various Palestinian factions, even his rivals.
Following news of his death, various Palestinian factions called for a general strike and marches to protest “against the assassination of the great national leader Ismail Haniyeh, which is part of the Zionist state’s terrorism and its war of extermination.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and recover all hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the current war in Gaza.
Hamas militants’ actions have left 1,197 people dead in southern Israel, most of them civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data.
Ismail Haniyeh attends the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president, on July 30, 2024 at the Parliament in Tehran © – / AFP
Islamist fighters also kidnapped 251 people. The army estimates that 111 are still held captive in Gaza, of whom 39 are believed to have died.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Since the beginning of Hamas
The son of a family that fled to Gaza when the State of Israel was created, Haniyeh joined Hamas when it was founded in 1987, coinciding with the first intifada.
He assumed political leadership in 2017, although he had previously served as Palestinian Prime Minister following the Islamist movement’s victory in the 2006 parliamentary elections.
Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a central part of its foreign policy.
The Palestinian movement is part of the “axis of resistance,” a group of groups aligned with Tehran, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
Hostilities between these pro-Iranian movements and Israel have increased since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, with constant exchanges of fire on the border between northern Israel and Lebanon and Houthi attacks on Israeli cities.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military attacked a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, killing a senior Hezbollah commander blamed for a deadly weekend attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that its military chief, Fuad Shukr, was in the building attacked by Israel, but added that his fate was still unknown.
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