Top Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an attack on his Tehran residence at 2 a.m. on Wednesday, according to a statement from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as reported by Reuters. Hamas, the Palestinian group in conflict with Israel in Gaza, has accused Israel of carrying out the raid that resulted in Haniyeh’s death, along with one of his bodyguards.
In response to the killing, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council is holding an emergency meeting at the residence of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a move typically reserved for extraordinary situations. The Chief of the IRGC’s elite Quds Force is also present at the meeting.
On the day before his death, Haniyeh, who managed Hamas’s political operations from exile in Qatar, attended the inauguration of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian and met with Supreme Leader Khamenei.
Israeli military officials have stated they are “fully prepared for any scenario,” with spokesperson Daniel Hagari expressing a preference to resolve conflicts without escalating to a wider war.
In response to Haniyeh’s killing, Iran has declared three days of mourning. Ayatollah Khamenei described seeking retribution as Iran’s “duty,” emphasizing that Israel would face severe consequences for the killing.
Haniyeh was involved in ceasefire negotiations amid the Israel-Gaza conflict and had previously claimed that Israeli airstrikes had killed three of his sons and four of his grandchildren. The military wing of Hamas, led by Yahya Sinwar, is believed to be behind the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the ongoing conflict.
This incident follows the recent claim by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) of killing Fuad Shukr, a senior Hezbollah commander allegedly responsible for a drone strike that killed 12 children in the Golan Heights.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that the US was not involved in or aware of Haniyeh’s assassination. Pakistan and China have condemned the targeted killing, while Germany criticized the cycle of reprisals in the Middle East.
Ismail Haniyeh, 62, was born in a Gaza City refugee camp and joined Hamas in the late 1980s. He rose through the ranks to become a close associate of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Haniyeh served prison sentences in Israel during the 1980s and 1990s and became Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority in 2006, though his tenure was cut short in 2007. In 2017, he was elected head of Hamas’s political wing and was subsequently designated a “specially designated global terrorist” by the United States.
