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Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in the Iranian capital Tehran, according to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hamas on Wednesday.
His killing represents a significant blow to the militant group, eliminating a key figure who headed its political operations while living overseas.
In a statement, Hamas accused Israel of targeting Haniyeh in a “raid” on his residence in Tehran, following his participation in the inauguration of the new Iranian president.
The Israeli military said it doesn’t respond to reports in foreign media, though senior officials have previously vowed to eliminate Hamas and its leadership in response to the group’s October 7 attack on Israel.
It is not clear precisely when Haniyeh, a key interlocutor with Egyptian and Qatari mediators on the ongoing hostage and ceasefire talks in Gaza, was killed.
The killing comes at an especially fraught time for the Middle East, with escalating confrontations between Israel and Hezbollah threatening to expand into a wider regional war and as Hamas continues to battle Israel’s military in Gaza amid an unfolding and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
Musa Abu Marzouk, a member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, said Haniyeh’s death would “not pass in vain,” while another Hamas official said the group is “ready to pay various prices.”
News of Haniyeh’s death came a day after Israel said it killed Hezbollah’s most senior military official, Fu’ad Shukr, in a drone strike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, a populous neighborhood that is also the Iran-backed group’s stronghold. The strike was the most serious Israeli escalation since confrontations between Hezbollah and Israel began on October 8.
The White House said it has seen the reports of Haniyeh’s death but declined to immediately comment further, according to a spokesperson.
Haniyeh would be the second Hamas senior leader to be killed since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza. In January, the group said its deputy head of the political bureau Saleh Al Arouri was killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Lebanese capital Beirut. Arouri was considered one of the founding members of the Hamas’ military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
