Hamas said Wednesday its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been attending the inauguration of the country’s new president.
“Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president,” the movement said in a statement.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was “hit” and he was killed along with a bodyguard.
“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website.
Hamas spokesperson and deputy head Khalil al-Hayya said that Haniyeh was hit directly by a rocket in the room where he was staying in Tehran, and that Hamas would not let the killing “go unaccounted for.”
Haniyeh had traveled to Tehran to attend Tuesday’s swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment on reports of Haniyeh’s death.
Asked about Israel’s involvement in the Hamas leader’s assassination and whether the US had advance notice of it, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin responded: “I don’t have anything for you on that,” according to the NY Times.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas’s attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal, but was already a well-known figure, having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006 following an upset victory by Hamas in that year’s parliamentary election.
Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and split his time between Turkey and Qatar.
He had traveled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the war, meeting both the Turkish and Iranian presidents.
Haniyeh was said to maintain good relations with the heads of the various Palestinian factions, including rivals to Hamas.
He joined Hamas in 1987 when the militant group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-run territory, which does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
It has hailed Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel but denied any involvement.
