Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran, group says, blaming Israel

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed Wednesday in an early morning raid in Tehran, the group and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said. Both blamed Israel for the strike.

Haniyeh, who served as the chairman of Hamas’ political wing, was in the Iranian capital attending the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president. Though he lived in Qatar, he was a central figure for the group’s international relations and a key interlocutor in ongoing negotiations to bring a cease-fire in Gaza.

Israel did not claim responsibility for the strike, but it has long vowed to kill Hamas leaders after the group’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. It has also carried out a number of assassinations in Iran.

The death of Haniyeh and other leaders, said Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri in an interview with the Al-Aqsa news channel, would not derail the group’s fight for Palestinian liberation.

“Hamas is an idea, and the martyrdom of its leaders does not stop this idea,” Abu Zuhri said.

Details remained sparse, but Hamas said Haniyeh was killed in a “treacherous Zionist airstrike” on his residence after he had attended the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. The Revolutionary Guard said his bodyguard was also killed. Haniyeh was one of 110 foreign dignitaries invited by Iran to participate in the inauguration ceremony.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened retribution in a post on X.

“The criminal, terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our territory and has caused our grief, but it has also prepared the ground for a severe punishment,” he wrote. “Following this bitter, tragic event which has taken place within the borders of the Islamic Republic, it is our duty to take revenge.”

Iranian news channels said that Haniyeh was staying in a special residence for war veterans in north Tehran’s Velenjak district, an area with many diplomatic missions and homes of senior officials, and that the missile struck the residence around 2 a.m.

“I didn’t hear anything and just woke up to the news, but it’s a horrible feeling to see this happen in your city,” said Shahrazad, 35, a teacher who lives in the district. “You feel insecure and that we’re facing the threat of all-out war. I just hope it stops there.”

Haniyeh’s assassination is likely to snarl the already tortuous negotiations between the group and Israel over a cease-fire and the release of hostages held by Hamas. It also comes at a particularly fraught moment in the region, with many fearing tensions that have reached fever pitch over nearly 10 months of the Gaza war will tip over into a full-on conflagration.

“Political assassinations & continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side?” wrote Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani on Wednesday on X.

“Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life.”

Only hours before Haniyeh was killed, Israel targeted a high-ranking Hezbollah commander with a drone strike on a residential building in Beirut, killing four people — including two children — and wounding 74, Lebanese officials said.

On Wednesday morning, with rescue efforts continuing, Hezbollah acknowledged that the commander was in the building at the time of the strike but did not confirm he was killed.

At the same time, another airstrike targeted a base southwest of Baghdad, killing four members of an Iran-backed Iraqi paramilitary faction, which blamed the attack on the United States.

Taken together, the attacks represent an unprecedented broadside on the so-called axis of resistance, an Iran-backed constellation of paramilitary factions and governments in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Gaza.

The Revolutionary Guard released a statement later on Wednesday, warning a response was forthcoming.

“Undoubtedly, this crime of the Zionist regime will face a harsh and painful response from the powerful and great front of the resistance, especially Islamic Iran,” the statement said.

Although this is not the first assassination on Iranian soil, the stakes for Tehran have nevertheless become higher. Wednesday’s strike, which targeted Haniyeh only a few hours after he had been in close contact with top Iranian officials, hints at a high-level security vulnerability.

“This was a moment of heavy security buildup in Tehran,” said Paris-based Iranian analyst Mojtaba Nadjafi. “For that to happen with all that in place, it means there are moles in the highest levels of Iran’s security organizations.”

It also represents an attack on the country’s sovereignty, said Dina Esfandiary, senior advisor on the Middle East and North Africa at International Crisis Group.

“From Iran’s perspective, they’re not as offended by the security breach but more that Israel decided to wait until he was on Iranian soil to take him out,” she said.

Had the assassination been limited to Hezbollah, she added, a smaller response from the group against Israel would have perhaps been enough to save face but not bring about a wider confrontation.

“But now all that seems like it’s not enough,” she said.

It was no accident that Israel chose to hit Haniyeh right after Pezeshkian’s inauguration, Nadjafi added. As the reformer candidate, Pezeshkian ran on a platform of reducing hostilities and restarting negotiations with the U.S. — a job that has become harder to fulfill.

“It was a symbolic message that Mr. Pezeshkian will not have an easy honeymoon and tensions shall remain high” — to the benefit of hard-liners in Israel, he said.

“This is something we were not aware of or involved in,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said in an interview with Channel NewsAsia while visiting Singapore. “It’s very hard to speculate” what impact the killing will have, he added.

Omid is a special correspondent and Bulos is a staff writer who reported from Beirut.