Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in the early hours of the morning in Iran, Palestinian group Hamas said on Wednesday, drawing fears of a wider escalation in a region shaken by Israel’s offensive in Gaza and a worsening conflict in Lebanon.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, hours after he attended a swearing-in ceremony for the country’s new president, and said it was investigating.
Iran’s state-owned news agency IRNA also confirmed Haniyeh’s killing, adding that one of his bodyguards was also killed in their residence in the Iranian capital early on Wednesday.
There was no immediate comment from Israel. The Israeli military said it was conducting a situational assessment but had not issued any new security guidelines for civilians.
The news, which came less than 24 hours after Israel claimed to have killed the Hezbollah commander it said was behind a deadly strike in the Israel-occupied Golan Heights, appears to set back chances of any imminent ceasefire agreement in Gaza.
“This assassination by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas,” senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters.
“We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve its objectives. Hamas is a concept and an institution and not persons,” he said.
Zuhri vowed Hamas would continue the path it was following, adding: “We are confident of victory.”
Iran’s top security body is expected to meet to decide Iran’s strategy in reaction to the death of Haniyeh, a close ally of Tehran, said a source with knowledge of the meeting.
US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said Washington would work to try to ease tensions but said the United States would help defend Israel if it were attacked.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killing of Haniyeh and Palestinian factions in the occupied West Bank called for a general strike and mass demonstrations.
Abbas is a rival of Haniyeh but slammed the killing as “cowardly”.
“President Mahmud Abbas of the State of Palestine strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious escalation,” Abbas’s office said in a statement.
“He urged our people and their forces to unite, remain patient, and stand firm against the Israeli occupation.”
A former commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaie, warned that Israel would “pay a heavy price” for assassinating Haniyeh in Tehran, Iranian state media reported.
Haniyeh, normally based in Qatar, has been the face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy as the offensive set off by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7 has raged in Gaza, where three of his sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
The International Criminal Court prosecutor’s office requested an arrest warrant for him over alleged war crimes at the same time it issued a similar request against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, Haniyeh has moved between Turkiye and Qatar’s capital Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the blockaded Gaza Strip and enabling him to act as a negotiator in ceasefire talks or to talk to Hamas’ ally Iran.
The assassination of Haniyeh comes as Israel’s campaign in Gaza approaches the end of its 10th month with no sign of an end to a conflict that has shaken the Middle East and threatened to spiral into a wider regional conflict.
Despite anger at Netanyau’s government from families of the Israeli hostages still held in Gaza and mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, talks brokered by Egypt and Qatar appear to have faltered.
At the same time, the risk of a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah has grown following the strike in the Golan Heights that killed 12 children in a Druze village on Saturday and the subsequent killing of the senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.
The conflict started on Oct 7 when Hamas-led fighters broke through security barriers around Gaza and launched a devastating attack on Israeli communities nearby, killing 1,200 people and abducting some 250 hostages in Gaza.
In response, Israel launched a relentless ground and air offensive in the densely populated coastal enclave that has killed more than 39,000 people and left more than two million facing a severe humanitarian crisis.
While many countries in the Middle East condemned Haniyeh’s killing, they also warned that it would have a major impact on efforts to bring a ceasefire in Israel’s offensive on Gaza.
Iran’s newly sworn-in President Masoud Pezeshkian said on X: “The Islamic Republic of Iran will defend its territorial integrity, honour, pride and dignity, and make the terrorist invaders regret their cowardly action.”
The foreign ministry of Qatar, where Haniyeh was based and which has been a mediator in the Gaza conflict, called the killing a “heinous crime”.
The ministry said the strike in Tehran was a “dangerous escalation” and “a flagrant violation of international and humanitarian law”.
“This assassination and the reckless Israeli behaviour of continuously targeting civilians in Gaza will lead to the region slipping into chaos and undermine the chances of peace”.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he was “deeply saddened” to hear that Haniyeh had been “martyred”, adding that he had become a symbol of Palestinian resistance.
“He had devoted his life to the Palestinian cause, and to bringing peace and tranquility to Palestine,” Fidan said on social media platform X, sharing a photograph of himself and Haniyeh.
The Turkish foreign ministry also offered its condolences to the “Palestinian people who have given hundreds of thousands of martyrs like Haniyeh in order to live in peace in their own homeland”.
“It has been revealed once again that the Netanyahu government has no intention of achieving peace,” it said in a statement.
“This attack also aims to spread the war in Gaza to a regional level. If the international community does not take action to stop Israel, our region will face much greater conflicts,” the Turkish ministry warned.
Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said it was “an absolutely unacceptable political murder, and it will lead to further escalation of tensions”.
Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, head of Yemen’s Houthi Supreme Revolutionary Committee, called targeting Haniyeh a “heinous terrorist crime and a flagrant violation of laws and ideal values”.
Areepen Uttarasin, a veteran Thai politician and former Gaza hostage negotiator, stressed that the assassination was “very serious because it occurred in Iran”. “It shows that Hamas’s opponents can strike anywhere,” he highlighted.
“Assassinating the Hamas leader will make negotiations and de-escalation more difficult. Things will become more violent and the situation will worsen, it will not improve,” the Thai leader emphasised.
