Hamas said in a statement that its leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated at his residence in Tehran according to an official Hamas statement released on Wednesday morning, The Palestinian group controlling Gaza said that Haniyeh was “killed in a treacherous Zionist raid”, Israel is yet to respond or issue a statement…
The Iranian News Agency reported that one of Haniyeh’s bodyguards was also killed when their residence in the capital city was targeted, In another statement, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard announced that it would investigate the incident: “We are studying the dimensions of Haniyeh’s martyrdom incident in Tehran.”
Most Hamas leaders keep a low public profile, while others have spent much of their lives evading assassination attempts by Israel.
Who was Ismail Haniyeh?
Ismail Haniyeh is widely considered Hamas’s overall leader and has been a prominent member of the movement since 1980, He briefly served as Palestinian prime minister – appointed in 2006, but was dismissed a year later after Hamas ousted the rival Fatah Party from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly violence.
He 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, Haniyeh had travelled to Tehran to attend Tuesday’s inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
In April, Haniyeh said, “Through the blood of the martyrs and the pain of the injured, we create hope, we create the future, we create independence and freedom for our people and our nation.” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has condemned the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas’s political bureau.
