Hamas has blamed Israel for the ‘assassination’
Hamas’s top political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in Iran, the group has announced.
In a statement, Hamas said he was killed in an airstrike and have blamed Israel. The group said Haniyeh died in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.
Israel has yet to respond to Haniyeh’s death.
According to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were “assassinated” in the capital Tehran at around 2am local time.
The Hamas-run station Al-Aqsa TV cited senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk as saying the assassination is a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished.”
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Haniyeh had been in Iran to attend a swearing-in ceremony for the country’s new president, Masound Pezeshkian, Sky News reports.
Pezeshkian described Haniyeh as a “brave leader”, and said he will make Israel “regret” the “cowardly” killing.
In a statement quoted by AFP news agency, the Iranian president added that Iran would “defend its territorial integrity, honour pride and dignity”.
Haniyeh had been living in Qatar in exile after leaving the Gaza Strip in 2019. He was the head of Hamas’s political bureau.
Following Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, in which some 1,200 people were killed and 250 more taken hostage, Israel had vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of the group.
Since then, Israel has carried out a huge offensive on Gaza, in which almost 40,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 90,900 injured, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza.
