Hamas Top Leader Ismail Haniyeh Killed

Ismail Haniyeh | Hamas’s top leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and one of his bodyguards were killed in an attack in Tehran on Wednesday.

A statement by Hamas said an “Israeli strike” killed the Palestinian official, who is the political bureau chief of the organization.

“Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president,” read the statement by Hamas.

Iran, meanwhile, reported that Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was targeted and that an investigation into the attack is underway. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday (July 30) and later met with the new leader and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, he and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website.

The IRGC statement offered condolences to the people of Palestine, the Muslim world, and the Resistance Front’s fighters over the Hamas leader’s death.

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The attack on the prominent Hamas leader comes amid concerns of war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah following a rocket attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights on Tuesday.

Accusing Hezbollah, Israel struck Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut in retaliation, saying it killed the commander, Fuad Shukr, responsible for the attack.

Ismail Haniyeh: Key Facts

• Early Life: Ismail Haniyeh was born in 1963 in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp.
• Hamas Involvement: He joined Hamas in the late 1980s and quickly rose through the ranks, eventually becoming the top leader in 2017. His early prominence came as a close associate of Hamas’s founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
• Student Activism: Haniyeh was a student activist at the Islamic University in Gaza City. He joined Hamas during its creation in the First Palestinian Intifada (uprising) in 1987.
• Imprisonments: He served multiple sentences in Israeli prisons throughout the 1980s and 1990s.
• Deportation: In 1992, he was arrested and deported from Gaza to Lebanon along with hundreds of others, before returning to Gaza the following year.
• Sunni Muslim Leader: Haniyeh, a Sunni Muslim, played a significant role in building up Hamas’s fighting capacity by fostering ties with Shi’ite Muslim Iran. In 2017, he led a high-level Hamas delegation to Iran, where he met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
• Political Role: He became the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority following Hamas’s victory in the 2006 legislative election but was dismissed from the post by President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
• Exile and Negotiation: Haniyeh moved between Turkey and Doha, Qatar’s capital, escaping the travel restrictions of the blockaded Gaza Strip. This mobility allowed him to act as a negotiator in Gaza truce talks and maintain communication with Iran.
• Family Tragedy: On April 10, three of his sons—Hazem, Amir, and Mohammad—were killed in an Israeli airstrike while driving. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed the men were “en route to carry out terror activity in the area of central Gaza.” Hamas stated that Haniyeh also lost four grandchildren in the attack.
• Denial of Allegations: Haniyeh denied Israeli claims that his sons were Hamas fighters.

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