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Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by an airstrike in Iran’s capital on Wednesday, the militant group and Iran’s state TV said.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian and met the Islamic nation’s supreme leader on Tuesday. Hamas said its political leader and one of his bodyguards were killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid” on his residence in Tehran.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei vowed revenge, saying Israel “prepared a harsh punishment for itself” by killing “a dear guest in our home” even though Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack.
“We consider his revenge as our duty,” he said in a statement.
The Israeli government has been hunting Hamas leaders since the militant group attacked southern Israel on 7 October, killing more than 1,130 people and taking 251 hostages.
Haniyeh in April said his three sons and three grandchildren were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, where Israel’s war against Hamas has displaced more than 90 per cent of the population and killed over 39,000 Palestinians, according to the local Hamas-run health ministry.
Hamas has vowed to retaliate over Haniyeh’s death, calling it a “cowardly act” will not “go unpunished”.
The group in a statement quoted Haniyeh as saying that the Palestinian cause has “costs” and “we are ready for these costs: martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, and for the sake of God Almighty, and for the sake of the dignity of this nation”.
Israel’s heritage minister, Amichay Eliyahu, in a post on X said Haniyeh’s death “makes the world a better place”.
“The iron hand that will strike them, is the one that will bring peace and a little comfort and strengthen our ability to live in peace,” the far-right politician wrote.
Iran’s revolutionary guards said the attack was under investigation.
It was not immediately clear how Iran itself, which offered protection to Haniyeh, would respond amid soaring tensions in the Middle East.
Mr Pezeshkian said Iran would defend its territorial integrity and dignity and “make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act” after the attack, which will be seen as an embarrassment for the government and Iran’s security services.
Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, condemned the Hamas leader’s killing as various Palestinian factions called for mass demonstrations. Russia, China and Qatar were among the nations that strongly criticised the assassination on Wednesday morning.
Haniyeh’s son Abdul Salam said his father survived four assassination attempts. “He was very keen to establish national unity and strived for the unity of all Palestinian factions and we affirm that this assassination will not deter the resistance, which will fight until freedom is achieved,” he told Reuters.
Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel claimed to have “eliminated” one of the top leaders of Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in an airstrike in Beirut, which it described as revenge for a rocket attack on the occupied Golan Heights that killed a dozen children on Saturday.
Israel blames Hezbollah for Saturday’s attack, while the militants have strongly denied responsibility.
Iran, which does not recognise Israel as a country, had warned against an attack on Lebanon to avoid further escalation of the conflict.
Haniyeh, 61, was the tough-talking face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy and served as the prime minister of Gaza.
He left the Strip in 2019 and operated between Turkey and Qatar’s capital Doha, escaping the travel curbs of blockaded Gaza and enabling him to act as a negotiator in ceasefire talks or to talk directly with officials in Iran.
“All the agreements of normalisation that you (Arab states) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict,” Haniyeh declared on Al Jazeera following the 7 October attack.
Haniyeh was “leading the political battle for Hamas with Arab governments,” said Adeeb Ziadeh, a specialist in Palestinian affairs at Qatar University. “He is the political and diplomatic front of Hamas,” Mr Ziadeh told Reuters.
The assassination could potentially harm president Joe Biden’s push to broker a temporary ceasefire and hostage release deal between Hamas and Israel.
Bill Burns, the director of the CIA, was in Rome on Sunday to meet with senior officials from Israel, Qatar and Egypt in the latest round of talks.
Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is also in the region for talks with US partners.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House. Asked by reporters in Manila about the Tehran strike, US defence secretary Lloyd Austin said he had no “additional information to provide.”
Source: independent.co.uk
