Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran after attending the inauguration of the country’s new president, Iran and the militant group said early Wednesday.
Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike for the death of the head of the Palestinian militant group’s political bureau. Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said it was investigating the attack and did not say how it occurred.
Israel has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel often doesn’t comment on assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency.
Hamas said Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran” after he attended the swearing-in of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday, along with other Hamas officials and officials from Hezbollah and allied groups.
“Hamas declares to the great Palestinian people and the people of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free people of the world, brother leader Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” Hamas said in its terse statement.
Source: Associated Press
