Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Picture: AFP
Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed on Wednesday in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he was attending the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, the group said, vowing that the act “will not go unanswered”.
In a joint statement, the factions in the occupied West Bank declared, “The national and Islamic factions in Palestine will conduct a comprehensive strike and protests to denounce the assassination of the esteemed leader Ismail Haniyeh, which is part of the Zionist state’s terrorism and its extermination campaign.”
Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike on a Hezbollah stronghold in south Beirut. A senior commander accused of launching a weekend rocket attack on the Golan Heights was also killed.
“Brother leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.
Hamas political bureau member Musa Abu Marzuk vowed the group would retaliate. “The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh is a cowardly act and will not go unanswered,” he said.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reported that Haniyeh was killed, along with a bodyguard, when his Tehran residence was “hit”.
“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas-Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran. As a result of this incident, he and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” said a statement on the Guards’ Sepah news website.
Iranian media said the strike that killed Haniyeh took place at around 11am, targeting “the special residences for war veterans in north Tehran” where he was staying.
The Israeli army declined to comment.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas condemned Haniyeh’s killing as a “cowardly act” and urged Palestinians to remain united against Israel.
Russia and Turkey also condemned the killing while Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels termed it a “terrorist crime”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the 7 October attacks, which sparked the war in Gaza.
The attacks launched by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,197 people. They were mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized 251 hostages, 111 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 39 the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza has killed at least 39,400 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The ministry does not provide details on civilian and militant deaths.
Regional tensions have soared during the war, drawing in Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal.
He was already a well-known figure having become Palestinian prime minister in 2006. This was followed by a victory by Hamas in that year’s parliamentary election.
Considered a pragmatist, Haniyeh lived in exile and split his time between Turkey and Qatar.
He had travelled on diplomatic missions to Iran and Turkey during the 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 militant group was founded. This was amid the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, against Israeli occupation, which lasted until 1993.
Hamas is part of the “axis of resistance,” which comprises Iran-backed armed groups positioned against arch-foe Israel across the Middle East.
Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
It has hailed Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel but denied any involvement.
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