Hamas leader is assassinated after Israel vowed to kill him

The top political leader of Hamas was assassinated yesterday in a stunning Israeli strike in Iran that has left the Palestinian group vowing to take revenge. Ismail Haniyeh (pictured), who had escaped the horrors of the war in Gaza while residing in Qatar, travelled to Iran to attend the inauguration of new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian.

But Israel’s Defence Forces seized the chance to hit Haniyeh and conducted an airstrike on his residence in Tehran just hours after the event, killing the Hamas leader and a security guard. The assassination, confirmed by both Hamas and Iranian authorities, marks the most high-profile killing since October 7 and could prove to be a tipping point in the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian group.

‘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,’ Hamas said in a statement. Hamas political bureau member Musa Abu Marzuk vowed: ‘The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh is a cowardly act and will not go unanswered.’

Musa Abu Marzouk, a member of the group’s political bureau, told CNN that the killing of Haniyeh ‘will not pass in vein’. Marzouk said: ‘The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh was a cowardly act and will not pass in vain.’ While Sami Abu Zuhri, another Hamas official, added: ‘We are engaged in an open war to liberate Jerusalem and we are ready to pay various prices.’ In response to the claim made by the group that his death was the result of an Israeli raid, the Israeli military said it ‘doesn’t respond to reports in the foreign media’.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington would work to try to ease tensions but said the US would help defend Israel if it were attacked. Iran planned to hold an emergency meeting of its Supreme National Security Council, according to The New York Times . Israel had vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.

At least ten members of Haniyeh’s family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this year, which included his sister. The strike hit the Haniyeh family home in Al-Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, last month. Pictures show how the building was reduced to rubble, with rescuers working at the scene. The victims were extracted and taken to the local hospital, where white body bags were laid out on the ground and distraught mourners seen gathering.

That attack came just weeks after Haniyeh lost three sons and four grandchildren in an Israeli airstrike on their car nearby. Before their deaths, Haniyeh was believed to have had 13 sons and daughters. The Qatar-based Hamas leader said at the time said that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the war with Israel broke out on October 7. Haniyeh is widely considered Hamas’s overall leader and has been a prominent member of the movement since 1980.

He also briefly served as Palestinian prime minister after being appointed in 2006 but was dismissed a year later after Hamas ousted rival Fatah Party. Haniyeh was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017 and the US Department of State designated him a terrorist in 2018. He has lived in Qatar for the past several years.

 Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement on his death: ‘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. 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.’ Since the October 7 attack, more than 39,360 Palestinians have been killed and more than 90,900 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants . The apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as the Biden administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage-release deal . It also comes after US forces carried out a strike in Iraq on Tuesday in self defence, after tensions rose when an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed Hezbollah’s most senior commander.

The strike in Iraq hit a base south of Baghdad used by Iran’s Popular Mobilization Forces and killed four members of the group, wounding four others. U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, said the United States carried out an airstrike in Musayib, located in Babil province, but did not provide more details. Tuesday’s action was the first known US strike in Iraq since February, when the U.S. military launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. While Israel struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut which claimed the life of Fuad Shukr. The attack had been in direct retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend . Shukr has a $5 million price on his head from the US Treasury, which describes him as a ‘senior adviser’ to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who played ‘a central role’ in the deadly 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

Lebanon’s health ministry said Wednesday that three people, including two children, had been killed in the strike, which also left 74 injured, updating an earlier toll. Minutes after the explosions rocked Beirut, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on social media site X that ‘Hezbollah crossed the red line’. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned what he called ‘blatant Israeli aggression’.

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