Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh Killed by Airstrike in Iran
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by an airstrike in the Iranian capital on Wednesday July 31, Iran and the militant group said, blaming Israel for a shock assassination that risks escalating the conflict even as the US and other nations were trying to prevent an all-out regional war. Iran's supreme leader vowed revenge against Israel.
Israel had vowed to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group's October 7 attack on southern Israel in which the Palestinian militant group killed 1,200 people and took some 250 others hostage.
The strike came just after Haniyeh had attended the inauguration of Iran's new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in Tehran.
Haniyeh's assassination in Tehran could push Iran and Israel into direct conflict if Iran retaliates.
"We consider his revenge as our duty," Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a statement on his official website. He said Israel had "prepared a harsh punishment for itself" by killing "a dear guest in our home."
Israel and Iran risked going to war when Israel hit Iran's embassy in Damascus in April. Iran retaliated and Israel countered in an exchange of strikes on each other's soil, but international efforts succeeded in containing that cycle before it spun out of control.
Haniyeh's killing could also prompt Hamas to pull out of negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the 10-month-old war in Gaza, which US mediators had said were making progress.
Hamas' military wing said in a statement that Haniyeh's assassination "takes the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions on the entire region."
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. In April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three of his sons and four of his grandchildren.
In the West Bank, the internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said Haniyeh's killing is a "cowardly act and dangerous development."
Israel's bombing and offensives in Gaza have killed more than 39,300 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
