Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s top ceasefire negotiator, has been assassinated in an airstrike in Tehran, with Hamas leaders saying that Israel is responsible and that the move will severely undermine talks for a ceasefire amid Israel’s genocide of Gaza.
Haniyeh, who was head of Hamas’s political bureau, was killed in the early hours of Wednesday in his residence in Iran’s capital, which he was visiting to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president. His bodyguard was also killed in the attack.
Israel has not taken responsibility for the killing, but at least one Israeli minister has publicly celebrated Haniyeh’s death. Hamas called the killing a “treacherous Zionist raid,” and Iranian leaders also said that Israel was behind the strike.
Israel has been targeting leaders of Hamas for decades and has pledged to totally eliminate Hamas — a goal that experts say is impossible — in its genocidal ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza. Israeli forces have attempted to assassinate Haniyeh once before, in 2003, when he was rising in the political ranks within Hamas. Additionally, in April, Israel killed three of his children and several of his grandchildren in a strike on al-Shati refugee camp in Gaza.
Haniyeh’s death came just hours after Israel struck a building in Beirut, killing at least three, the Lebanon health ministry said, and wounding 74 others. Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that top military commander Fuad Shukr, the target of Israel’s attack, was killed in the strike.
The two strikes in combination represent a major escalation of tensions between Iran and its allies and Israel, which has been openly stoking war with Iran for months.
Lebanese political analyst Nabih Awada told the Associated Press that the Beirut strike, on a suburb in southern Beirut, was “a violation of all rules of engagement” established between Hezbollah and Israel. At the same time, the killing of Haniyeh was a “political assassination,” which could provoke a harsher response than if a military commander was killed, Awada said.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has vowed a “harsh punishment” for Israel in retaliation for the strike on Haniyeh. In April, after Israel bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iran retaliated by sending what Israel said was over 300 drones and missiles which were nearly all shot down by Israel’s military and U.S. forces in the area.
Haniyeh’s killing puts a major dent in ceasefire negotiations. As Hamas’s top leader for international diplomacy, he was leading the group’s negotiation efforts with Israel and various other countries like Qatar and the U.S.
Qatar’s Prime Minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, says Haniyeh’s killing undermines the talks. Qatar and Egypt have been involved in many ceasefire talks over the past 10 months as mediators. “Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? Peace needs serious partners and a global stance against the disregard for human life,” he said.
Egypt has also said that the killing will harm the talks, and called on the UN Security Council to rein in Israel’s escalations of conflicts.
The killing — whether carried out by Israel or just celebrated by its leaders — further underscores Israel’s unwillingness to agree to a ceasefire deal in Gaza, which Israeli leaders have repeatedly said they oppose despite U.S. insistence that they are open to the idea.
BBC reported that the Palestinian Authority was dismayed to hear about Haniyeh’s assassination.
“It’s opening the door of hell,” Sabri Saidam, a leader of Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority, told BBC. “Not only did I feel that Israel was targeting the life of Ismail Haniyeh, but rather the life of any settlement in the region. Israel has killed all hopes and aspirations for an end to hostilities.”
Later on Wednesday, as reactions to Haniyeh’s death were unfurling, Israel attacked and killed two Al Jazeera Arabic journalists who were reporting near Haniyeh’s house in al-Shati refugee camp. Journalist Ismail al-Ghoul and cameraman Rami al-Refee are two of the over 165 Palestinian journalists Israel has killed since October.
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