Photo: Iranian Presidency Office Associated Press Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (L) with Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian hours before his death on Tuesday, July 30, 2024.
Published yesterday at 11:49 p.m. Updated at 9:08 a.m.
Hamas leader Ismaïl Haniyeh was killed Wednesday in Tehran in a strike blamed on Israel by the Palestinian Islamist movement and Iran, who promised to avenge his death, raising fears of a conflagration in the region in the midst of the war in Gaza. 60~/p>
Israel vowed to destroy Hamas after its unprecedented attack on Israeli soil on October 7, and responded with a major offensive in the Strip of Gaza, devastated and bruised by nearly ten months of war.
Head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismaïl Haniyeh, 61, participated in the ceremony on Tuesday in Tehran inauguration of reformist President Massoud Pezeshkian, whose country is Israel's sworn enemy and an ally of Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah.
Secretary of State American Antony Blinken claimed that the United States, Israel's main ally, was neither “informed” nor “involved” in his death.
Hours before the attack in Tehran, the Israeli army announced that it had “eliminated” near Beirut the Hezbollah commander it said was responsible for Saturday’s deadly attack in Majdal Shams in the occupied Golan.
It did not immediately comment on the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, who was elected head of Hamas’ political bureau in 2017 and was living in exile in Qatar.
“Ismail Haniyeh died in a Zionist strike on his residence in Tehran,” Hamas said.
According to Iranian media, he “was in one of the special residences for war veterans in northern Tehran when he was killed.” killed by an aerial projectile” at around 2 a.m. local time (10:30 p.m. GMT Tuesday).
This assassination “will have enormous consequences for the entire region,” warned the armed wing of the Hamas.
The attack “will not go unanswered,” threatened Moussa Abou Marzouk, a leader of the Palestinian movement.
“With this act, the criminal and terrorist Zionist regime has prepared the ground for severe punishment for itself, and we consider it our duty to avenge (Haniyeh's) blood shed on the territory of the Islamic Republic,” Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said.
200% Deposit Bonus up to €3,000 180% First Deposit Bonus up to $20,000Ismail Haniyeh will be buried in Doha on Friday after an official funeral in Tehran on Thursday. Iran has declared three days of mourning.
The main mediator in negotiations on a truce in Gaza, Qatar, has questioned whether to continue mediating. “How can mediation succeed when one side assassinates the other side's negotiator?” Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said.
The Palestinian Authority, China, Russia, Turkey, Jordan, Syria and Iraq condemned Haniyeh's assassination, as did Yemen's Houthi rebels and Hezbollah.
The latter two form, along with Hamas, what Iran calls the “axis of resistance” against Israel.
Photo: Vahid Salemi Associated Press Members of the Tehran University Council marched through the streets of the capital on Wednesday to protest the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.
“A clap of thunder, something incredible,” said Wael Qudayh, a Gaza resident, commenting on Haniyeh's assassination.
In its offensive in Gaza, the Israeli army killed several members of the Hamas leader's family, including three of his sons and four grandchildren.
In early July, she said there were “increasing signs” that the head of Hamas’s military wing, Mohammed Deif, had been killed in a strike she carried out in the Gaza Strip. But there has been no confirmation of his death.
On October 7, Hamas commandos infiltrated from Gaza into southern Israel carried out an attack that killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data. Of the 251 people kidnapped, 111 are still being held in Gaza, including 39 who have died, according to the army.
The Israeli offensive has left 39,445 dead, according to data from the Health Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza government, which does not provide information on the number of civilians and combatants killed.
Israelis have expressed concern for the hostages in Gaza after the death of Ismail Haniyeh.
“[…] This jeopardizes the possibility of an agreement” for their release, believes Anat Noy, a resident of Haifa (north).
Considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union, Hamas seized power in Gaza in 2007, where the war continues to rage.
On Israel's northern front, in Lebanon, the Israeli army claimed to have “eliminated the highest military official of the terrorist organization Hezbollah Fouad Chokr” in a strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut.
According to her, he was “the commander responsible” for the rocket attack on Saturday in Majdal Shams that killed 12 young people on a soccer field.
Two women and two children died in the Israeli strike, according to Lebanese authorities.
Hezbollah has not confirmed Fouad Chokr's death, but said he was in the building that was targeted.
“What stresses me out now is the reaction of Hamas and Hezbollah. My partner is a reservist and mobilized in the north (of Israel), and he was told to be on alert,” said Shahar Binyamini, a Haifa resident.
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