Terror group confirms death, blames it on ‘Zionist strike’ on residence in Iranian capital, declares ‘severe escalation’ will not go unpunished; PA’s Abbas condemns ‘cowardly act’
By AGENCIES and TOI STAFFToday, 8:53 am
Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a press briefing after his meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the early hours of the morning in Iran, the Palestinian terror group said on Wednesday, describing the strike as a “severe escalation” that would not achieve its goals.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also confirmed the death of Haniyeh, hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for the country’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian, and said it was investigating.
It was the second high-profile assassination attributed to Israel in a matter of hours, coming after an airstrike in Beirut that killed Hezbollah’s top military leader. There was no immediate comment on the Tehran strike from Israeli authorities.
Israel had vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas after the Gaza-based terror group’s devastating October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
Haniyeh, normally based in Qatar, has been the face of the Palestinian terror group’s international diplomacy as the war triggered by the attack has raged in the Gaza Strip, where three of his sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike. He is the most senior Hamas official killed since the war started.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Editionby email and never miss our top storiesNewsletter email addressGET IT
By signing up, you agree to the terms
One of Haniyeh’s bodyguards was also killed, the IRGC said.
An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (C) recites a prayer during a meeting with members of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the West Bank city of Ramallah on June 24, 2024. (Thaer Ghanaim / PPO / AFP)
Hamas said Haniyeh was killed “in a treacherous Zionist strike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.”
“Hamas declares to the great Palestinian people and the people of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free people of the world, brother leader Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” the terse statement said.
In another statement, the group quoted Haniyeh as saying that the Palestinian cause had “costs” and “we are ready for these costs: martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, and for the sake of God Almighty, and for the sake of the dignity of this nation.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the killing of Haniyeh was a “cowardly act” and urged Palestinians to remain united against Israel.
“President Mahmoud Abbas of the State of Palestine strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious escalation,” Abbas’s office said in a statement. “He urged our people and their forces to unite, remain patient, and stand firm against the Israeli occupation.”
Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV cited senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk as saying the slaying was “a cowardly act that will not go unpunished.”
The Hamas-linked Shehab news outlet quoted another senior Hamas official, Sami Abu Zuhri, as saying that Hamas as a movement was strong enough to outlast the deaths of any of its leaders.
“We are waging an open war to liberate Jerusalem and are ready to pay any price,” Abu Zuhri was quoted as saying. Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the assassination would not achieve its goals.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri. (AP/Hatem Moussa)
“This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas and the will of our people and achieve fake goals,” he said. “We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve its objectives.”
“Hamas is a concept and an institution and not persons. Hamas will continue on this path regardless of the sacrifices and we are confident of victory,” Abu Zuhri said.
Nobody has claimed responsibility for the killing but analysts on Iranian state television immediately began blaming Israel for the attack.
Sepah cited an IRGC statement that said: “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, he and one of his bodyguards were martyred.”
The Guards said the cause of the incident was not immediately clear but it was “being investigated.”
A source told Reuters that Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, with the presence of senior Guards commanders, convened to discuss the assassination. The meeting was to decide on Iran’s strategy in reaction to the strike on Haniyeh, according to the source.
Iran’s state media cited the Foreign Ministry as saying in a statement “the martyrdom of Haniyeh in Tehran will strengthen the deep and unbreakable bond between Tehran, Palestine, and the resistance.”
Haniyeh arrived in Tehran on Tuesday to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian in parliament.
He had met with Pezeshkian as well as Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, right, shakes hands with Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh at the start of their meeting at the President’s office in Tehran, Iran, July 30, 2024. (Iranian Presidency Office via AP)
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Mashaal.
He 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 relative 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 ongoing Gaza 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 terror group was founded amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israel, which lasted until 1993.
Hamas is part of the “axis of resistance” that also include Tehran-aligned groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen arrayed against Israel.
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.
A man gestures in front of the car in which three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were reportedly killed in an Israeli airstrike in al-Shati camp, west of Gaza City on April 10, 2024. (AFP)
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the October 7 attack.
In April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren.
In an interview with the Al Jazeera satellite channel at the time, Haniyeh said the killings would not pressure Hamas into softening its positions in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations with Israel.
The killing of Haniyeh came after Israel carried out a rare strike on Beirut, which it said killed Fuad Shukr, whom it described as Hezbollah’s terror military commander. Hezbollah has not confirmed Shukr’s death in the strike, which also killed at least one woman and two children and wounded dozens of people.
The strike came amid escalating hostilities with the Lebanese terror group, which has carried out near-daily attacks across the border in what it says is support for Gaza. Israel said the strike on Shukr was revenge for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at a soccer field on the Golan Heights earlier this week. The US also blames Shukr for planning and launching the deadly 1983 Marine bombing in the Lebanese capital.