Who was Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, reportedly assassinated by Israeli airstrike?

Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was reportedly assassinated early this morning in an attack on his residence in Tehran, Iran. Both Hamas and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard have confirmed Haniyeh’s death. However, at the time of writing, there has been no response yet from Israel, which did claim responsibility for the bombing in Beirut, Lebanon, that killed Hezbollah’s second-in-command just hours earlier.

Did Israel kill Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh?

According to an Iranian source cited by Al-Mayadeen, Haniyeh was killed in a missile attack “from abroad,” which also resulted in the death of one of his bodyguards. Iran has deemed this an act of territorial aggression and has warned that Israel “will pay a high price,” according to former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohsen Rezaee. Hamas has also vowed to respond, mourning the loss of their “brother, leader, and martyr” in what they call a “treacherous Zionist raid.”

For the Palestinian movement, Haniyeh’s assassination is a “grave escalation that will not achieve its goals” and a “cowardly act that will not go unpunished,” according to movement spokespeople.

Al-Mayadeen reports that Israel has closed the airspace along the Hadera-Haifa line for 24 hours out of fear of reprisals. They also confirm that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has instructed his ministers not to make public statements about the assassination. According to the Israeli media outlet Haaretz, Netanyahu will conduct a security reassessment on Wednesday.

Hours before his assassination, Haniyeh attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, who was elected in early elections following the sudden death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last May. Haniyeh had been living and leading Hamas from Qatar and Turkey but had traveled to Iran for Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony.

It is no coincidence that Haniyeh died in Iran. Tehran is the main supporter of anti-Zionist movements such as Hamas, Hezbollah, and even the Houthis in Yemen, and together they form the primary axis of resistance against Israel. Haniyeh’s death “will strengthen the deep and unbreakable bond” between Hamas and Iran, according to Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani. In addition to the affected parties, Russia, Qatar, and China have condemned Haniyeh’s killing.

Who was Ismail Haniyeh?

Ismail Haniyeh was born in 1962 in a refugee camp in northern Gaza, into a Palestinian family that had lived in Ashkelon before being displaced, a city now under Israeli control. He studied at UN-run schools and graduated in Arabic literature from the Islamic University of Gaza. During the 1980s and 1990s, he was detained by Israeli authorities and served several sentences.

Haniyeh’s rise in Hamas was guided by his mentor and the movement’s founder, Sheikh Yassin, for whom he served as personal secretary. He joined the movement in 1987 during the first intifada. Both survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003, but a year later, Yassin was killed in an attack by the Israeli Army. Later, in 2006, Haniyeh was appointed leader of Hamas in Gaza and served as prime minister of a Palestinian unity government that dissolved due to factional differences.

In 2017, he was named the political leader of Hamas. The organization sought to soften its public image to gain national and international popularity. Haniyeh actively participated in peace negotiations between Israel and Hamas, supervised by Egypt, Qatar, and the US. In 2019, Haniyeh left Gaza, leaving Yahya Sinwar, still alive, as the political leader of the Strip.