Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Iran on Wednesday, the Palestinian militant group Hamas and Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards said in separate statements.
The Islamist faction mourned the death of Haniyeh, who it said was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.
Hanieh attended Iran’s new president’s swearing in ceremony on Tuesday.
“Early this morning, the residence of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran was struck, resulting in his and one of his body guards’ martyrdom. The cause is under investigation and will be announced soon,” the Revolutionary Guards said.
The killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh is under investigation and the results will be announced later today, Iranian state media reported, citing a statement from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The IRGC offered condolences to “the heroic Palestinian nation, the Muslim Ummah (community), fighters of the resistance front and the noble Iranian nation over the martyrdom of the senior Palestinian resistance leader,” state media reported.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
White House aware of reports of Ismail Haniyeh’s death
The White House has seen the reports of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh being killed in Iran, a spokesperson said, but declined to immediately comment further.
Who is Ismail Haniyeh?
Ismail Haniyeh (29 January 1962 – 31 July 2024) was a Palestinian politician who was chief political leader of Hamas, which has governed the Gaza Strip since 2007.
He was the chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau. From 2023 until his death, he lived in Qatar. He was killed in Iran by Israel on 31 July 2024.
Ismail Haniyeh was born in the al-Shati refugee camp in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip in 1962.
He pursued his higher education at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he first became involved with Hamas, and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Arabic literature in 1987. In 1997, he was appointed to head a Hamas office and subsequently rose through the ranks of the organization.
In 2006, Haniyeh led the Hamas list that won the Palestinian legislative elections, resulting in his appointment as Prime Minister of the State of Palestine.
However, on 14 June 2007, Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority, dismissed him from office. Haniyeh did not acknowledge Abbas’ decree due to the ongoing Fatah–Hamas conflict and continued to exercise prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip.
He served as the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from 2006 until February 2017, when Yahya Sinwar replaced him. On 6 May 2017,
Haniyeh was elected chairman of Hamas’s Political Bureau, succeeding Khaled Mashal. Following his election, he relocated from the Gaza Strip to Qatar. On 31 July 2024, Iranian media reported that Haniyeh had been killed during a visit to Iran.
