Emma Graham-Harrison & Quique Kierszenbaum
The Guardian / July 31, 2024
The death of the political leader of the Palestinian militant group came hours after Israel claimed it killed Hezbollah’s top military commander in Beirut
Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, has been killed by an airstrike in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning, the group said, just hours after Israel claimed it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut.
Hamas blamed Israel for Haniyeh’s death, which one official described as a “grave escalation”. It said he was targeted at “his residence in Tehran, after participating in the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president”.
The dual assassinations are heavy blows to Hamas and Hezbollah, but also raise the stakes for Iran, which backs both groups. They will fuel growing fears that the war in Gaza could spiral into a broader regional conflict.
Iran’s top security council met early on Wednesday to discuss the country’s response to the killing, Reuters reported.
The Israeli military declined to comment on Haniyeh’s death. Israel has vowed to kill all Hamas leaders after the 7 October attacks and its intelligence services have a history of covert attacks inside Iran, mostly targeting scientists from the Iranian nuclear program.
Haniyeh’s killing was “a grave escalation that will not achieve its goals”, Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
Hamas has survived past assassinations of its top leaders, including Haniyeh’s mentor Ahmed Yassin in 2004, and Haniyeh did not command operations on the ground in Gaza, after leaving for exile in 2019.
Hamas fighters inside Gaza are led by Yahya Sinwar, thought to be the mastermind of the 7 October attacks that killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 others taken hostage.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday morning he did not think a wider war in the Middle East was “inevitable” after the assassinations.
“I don’t think war is inevitable. I maintain that. I think there’s always room and opportunities for diplomacy,” he told reporters on a visit to the Philippines.
US officials have for months been leading a global diplomatic effort to prevent the war in Gaza escalating into a broader and even more dangerous regional conflict.
Recently they had been pushing for at least a temporary ceasefire and hostage-release deal in Gaza, where Israel’s war since 7 October has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians and wounded over 90,000 according to health authorities in Gaza.
CIA Director Bill Burns was in Rome on Sunday for a round of talks with officials from Israel, Qatar and Egypt, negotiations likely have been thrown into disarray by the overnight attacks.
Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel claimed it killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb launched in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at the weekend.
Lebanon’s foreign minister said the strike in Beirut was a shock, after assurances from Israel’s allies that the country was planning a “limited response” that “would not produce a war”.
“That’s what we’re afraid of, and hopefully this will not produce a war,” Abdallah Bou Habib told The Guardian. “We did not expect to be hit in Beirut. We thought these were red lines that the Israelis would respect.”
On Wednesday morning Russia and Turkey condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, with Moscow describing it as a “completely unacceptable political killing”, the Tass news agency reported.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas also condemned Haniyeh’s assassination, calling it a “cowardly act and dangerous development”, according to AP, and Palestinian national and Islamic factions called for a general strike and mass demonstrations.
Haniyeh had repeatedly urged Palestinians to be “steadfast” after Israel killed his mentor and members of his family; his own death is likely to elicit a similar response from other Hamas leaders.
In April when an airstrike killed three of his sons and four grandchildren he insisted in an interview with Al-Jazeera that his personal loss would not pressure Hamas to shift its position in negotiations.
Inside Israel, the military said it was assessing the situation, but the home defence policy – which calls on citizens to prepare for potential attacks – had not been changed. The country’s northern airspace was completely closed apart from emergency flights, local media reported.
Emma Graham-Harrison is The Guardian‘s senior international affairs correspondent.
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Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran: what we know so far
Helen Livingstone
The Guardian / July 31, 2024
Hamas said in a statement that its political leader has been killed in an attack in Iran.
Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in Iran. Here’s what we know so far:
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed, according to Hamas and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Israel has yet to make any comment on Haniyeh’s killing but in its statement, Hamas accused Israel of the attack. Associated Press reports that analysts on Iranian state television have also begun blaming Israel for the attack.
The Hamas statement said the group mourned Haniyeh “who died as a result of a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran, after participating in the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president”.
The assassination was reported on Iranian State TV early on Wednesday morning. In a statement, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said “The cause and dimensions of this incident are being investigated and the results will be announced later.”
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Haniyeh had been targeted in his residence along with an Iranian bodyguard. It said he had been in Iran to attend the inauguration of President Masoud Pezeshkian and that the circumstances of the “incident” was being investigated.
Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk said Haniyeh’s death “cowardly act that will not go unpunished”, according to the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV. Another Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri has told Reuters that the killing is a grave escalation that will not achieve its goals.
Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, head of Yemen’s Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee called Haniyeh’s killing a “heinous terrorist crime”, according to Reutersand “a flagrant violation of laws and ideal values.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has strongly condemned the killing, Palestinian state news agency WAFA reported. Palestinian national and Islamic factions have also called for a general strike and mass demonstrations in response to the assassination.
Although Israel has not formally commented, several Israeli ministers have reacted to Haniyeh’s assassination. The heritage minister, Amichay Eliyahu, celebrated his killing, writing on X: “Haniyeh’s death makes the world a little better” and that this is the “right way to clean the world from this filth”.
Shlomo Karhi, minister of communications, wrote on X: “Yes, all your enemies will perish, O God”, although the post appeared later to have been deleted.
Amichai Chikli, minister of diaspora affairs and combating antisemitism, posted a video of the Hamas leader on X with the caption, “Careful What You Wish For”.
Haniyeh was the exiled political chief of the militant group and had spent much of his time in recent years in Qatar. During the Israel-Gaza war he had acted as a negotiator in the ceasefire talks and liaised with Hamas’s main ally, Iran. He was photographed in Tehran on Tuesday meeting with Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, and secretary general of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, Ziyad al-Nakhalah.
Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel claimed it killed Hezbollah’s top military commander, Fuad Shukur, in an airstrike on a south Beirut suburb launched in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children at the weekend.
There are fears that the deaths could escalate tensions between Israel, Hezbollah and Iran, threatening the US leading a global diplomatic effort to prevent a full-blown regional conflict.
Helen Livingstone is Guardian Australia‘s Europe front editor
