Tehran: Ismail Haniyeh, one of the senior Hamas leaders was assassinated during the early hours of Wednesday, July 31, in Tehran while he was on a visit to Iran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of the country’s President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in a statement confirmed the attack. It stated that a probe into the killing is underway.
Several analysts on Iranian state television began blaming Israel for the attack, which has pledged to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s unprecedented Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
Earlier, Haniyeh in a televised statement said, “All the agreements of normalisation that you (Arab states) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict.”
Who is Ismail Haniyeh?
Haniyeh was born in the al-Shati refugee camp in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip in 1963. He completed his education in Gaza, where he became involved with Hamas and earned a bachelor’s degree in Arabic literature in 1987.
During the First Intifada, he was imprisoned by Israel and was exiled in 1992. However, upon returning to Gaza, Haniyeh emerged as a significant figure in Hamas.
In 1997, he was appointed to lead one of the group’s offices and advanced within the organisation.
Haniyeh was a close associate and aide to the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a co-founder of Hamas. This played a crucial role in his rise within the group.
After Yassin was killed by the Israeli military in 2003, Haniyeh was named head of the Hamas, who won the 2006 Palestinian legislative elections.
He later assumed the role of Prime Minister of the State of Palestine. However, in June 2007, he was dismissed from office by Mahmoud Abbas, the President of the Palestinian National Authority, due to a conflict with Fatah.
Amid the ongoing aggression between Israel and Hamas, in the April 10 attack, Haniyeh lost his three sons – Hazem, Amir and Mohammad when an Israeli air strike struck the car they were driving, Hamas claimed.
He also lost four of his grandchildren, three girls and a boy, in the attack, the group added.
However, following Israel’s aggression, Haniyeh denied Israeli assertions that his sons were fighters for the group and said “The interests of the Palestinian people are placed ahead of everything” when asked if his family’s killing would impact truce talks.
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