EGN NEWS DESK
BEIRUT — Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard mentioned early Wednesday, and Hamas blamed Israel for the assault.
Israel has vowed to kill Haniyeh and different leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel that killed 1,200 individuals and noticed some 250 others taken hostage.
An Israeli navy spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. Israel usually doesn’t relating to assassinations carried out by their Mossad intelligence company.
Hamas mentioned Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated within the inauguration of Iran’s new president.”
“Hamas declares to the nice Palestinian individuals and the individuals of the Arab and Islamic nations and all of the free individuals of the world, brother chief Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” the terse assertion mentioned.
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The prime Hamas chief in Gaza is Yehya Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 assault.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. Iran gave no particulars on how Haniyeh was killed, and the Guard mentioned the assault was below investigation.
Analysts on Iranian state tv instantly started blaming Israel for the assault.
There was no quick response from the White House. The obvious assassination comes at a precarious time, because the Biden administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to comply with not less than a short lived cease-fire and hostage-release deal.
CIA Director Bill Burns was in Rome on Sunday to satisfy with senior Israel, Qatari and Egyptian officers within the newest spherical of talks. Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is within the area for talks with U.S. companions.
Israel is suspected of working a yearslong assassination marketing campaign focusing on Iranian nuclear scientists and others related to its atomic program. In 2020, a prime Iranian navy nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, was killed by a remote-controlled machine gun whereas touring in a automobile outdoors Tehran.
In Israel’s battle in opposition to Hamas for the reason that October assault, greater than 39,360 Palestinians have been killed and greater than 90,900 wounded, in response to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose depend doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
—Associated Press writers Amir Vahdat in Tehran, Iran, and Jon Gambrell in Ubud, Indonesia, contributed to this report.
