A top Hamas leader has been killed after a targeted attack in Tehran, with the terror group now vowing revenge over his death.
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas chief, was killed while attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president.
Their statement said that Haniyeh had been killed alongside a security guard in a targeted attack at their place of residence.
Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, had been in the capital city as Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in as President of the nation.
In a statement, Hamas blamed Israeli forces on the death of Haniyeh as they announced his death ‘to the Palestinian people and the Arab nation’.
Hamas officials have also now made it clear that the death of Haniyeh will not ‘pass in vein’, while adding they were ‘ready to pay various prices’.
Palestinian group Hamas’ top leader, Ismail Haniyeh speaks during a press conference in Tehran, Iran, March 26, 2024
Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, had been in the capital city as Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in as President of the nation
Musa Abu Marzouk, a member of the group’s political bureau, told CNN that the killing of Haniyeh ‘will not pass in vein’.
Marzouk said: ‘The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh was a cowardly act and will not pass in vain.’
While Sami Abu Zuhri, another Hamas official, added: ‘We are engaged in an open war to liberate Jerusalem and we are ready to pay various prices.’
In response to the claim made by the group that his death was the result of an Israeli raid, the Israeli military said it ‘doesn’t respond to reports in the foreign media’.
Meanwhile, there was no immediate reaction from the White House on the death of Haniyeh.
Iran planned to hold an emergency meeting of its Supreme National Security Council, according to The New York Times.
Israel had 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.
At least ten members of Haniyeh’s family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this year, which included his sister.
The strike hit the Haniyeh family home in Al-Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, last month.
Pictures show how the building was reduced to rubble, with rescuers working at the scene.
The victims were extracted and taken to the local hospital, where white body bags were laid out on the ground and distraught mourners seen gathering.
Before their deaths, Haniyeh was believed to have had 13 sons and daughters. The Qatar-based Hamas leader said at the time said that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the war with Israel broke out on October 7.
Haniyeh, center, flashes a victory after the conclusion of the swearing-in ceremony of newly-elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday – hours before he was killed
A man stands in the rubble of the house of the sister of Ismail Haniyeh after it was razed by Israeli bombardment
Bodies of ten people, including the sister of Haniyeh, are brought to al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after the Israeli attack on the Al-Shati refugee camp
Haniyeh is widely considered Hamas’s overall leader and has been a prominent member of the movement since 1980.
He also briefly served as Palestinian prime minister after being appointed in 2006 but was dismissed a year later after Hamas ousted rival Fatah Party.
Haniyeh was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017 and the US Department of State designated him a terrorist in 2018. He has lived in Qatar for the past several years.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri said in a statement on his death: ‘This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas and the will of our people and achieve fake goals. We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve its objectives.
‘Hamas is a concept and an institution and not persons.
‘Hamas will continue on this path regardless of the sacrifices and we are confident of victory.’
Since the October 7 attack, more than 39,360 Palestinians have been killed and more than 90,900 wounded, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as the Biden administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
It also comes after US forces carried out a strike in Iraq on Tuesday in self defence, after tensions rose when an Israeli airstrike in Beirut killed Hezbollah’s most senior commander.
The strike in Iraq hit a base south of Baghdad used by Iran’s Popular Mobilization Forces and killed four members of the group, wounding four others.
U.S. officials, speaking anonymously, said the United States carried out an airstrike in Musayib, located in Babil province, but did not provide more details.
Tuesday’s action was the first known US strike in Iraq since February, when the U.S. military launched airstrikes in Iraq and Syria.
File image of festivalgoers fleeing as Hamas gunmen storm the Nova music festival on October 7 last year. People fled in their cars and on foot. Many were killed
The destroyed top floors of an eight storey building in Beirut hit by an Israeli strike that targeted a top Hezbollah commander
Portraits of the children and youngsters who were killed two days ago, hang on the football stadium fence where a rocket landed, in the Druze village of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights
While Israel struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut which claimed the life of Fuad Shukr.
The attack had been in direct retaliation for rocket fire from Lebanon that killed 12 children over the weekend.
Shukr has a $5 million price on his head from the US Treasury, which describes him as a ‘senior adviser’ to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who played ‘a central role’ in the deadly 1983 bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
Lebanon’s health ministry said Wednesday that three people, including two children, had been killed in the strike, which also left 74 injured, updating an earlier toll.
Minutes after the explosions rocked Beirut, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant posted on social media site X that ‘Hezbollah crossed the red line’.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati condemned what he called ‘blatant Israeli aggression’.