Top Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, killed in Iran
Iranian media has reported the death of top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in an Israeli attack in the Iranian capital.
Haniyeh was staying at a building for war veterans in Tehran when the attack occurred around 02:00 (00:00 GMT). Some reports suggest he was killed in an air strike.
Haniyeh, 62, was widely considered Hamas’s overall leader.
Haniyeh was appointed Palestinian prime minister in 2006 by President Mahmoud Abbas after Hamas won the most seats in national elections, but he was dismissed a year later after the group ousted Mr Abbas’ Fatah party from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly violence.
Israel has not commented, but it has vowed to destroy Hamas following the October 7 attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,200 people.
In response, Israel has launched a massive military operation in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, resulting in at least 39,400 deaths, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Hamas stated that Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the new Iranian President, Masoud Pezeshkian, who was sworn in on Tuesday.
Musa Abu Marzuk, a member of Hamas' political bureau, called the incident a “cowardly act” that “will not go unanswered.” Another senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, asserted that the group would “continue on its path.”
Haniyeh’s death occurred just hours after Israel claimed to have killed Fuad Shukr, the top military commander of Hezbollah, in an airstrike. This was in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights over the weekend.
Hezbollah has not yet confirmed the death of a senior commander in the Israeli attack on Beirut on Tuesday but stated that Shukr was in a targeted building.
Haniyeh rejected his sacking as “unconstitutional”, stressing that his government “would not abandon its national responsibilities towards the Palestinian people”, and continued to rule in Gaza.
He was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017.
In 2018, the US Department of State designated Haniyeh a terrorist. He had lived in Qatar for the past several years.
