Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran
Photo: Ismail Haniyeh, leader of Hamas (flickr.com)
The leader of the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, and one of his bodyguards were killed in an attack on their residence in Tehran, according to a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The IRGC reported that an investigation into the incident is ongoing.
According to AP, Haniyeh was in Tehran attending the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Analysts on Iranian state television immediately began blaming Israel for the attack.
Israel has not yet commented on the information.
Hamas accused Israel of killing Haniyeh during an airstrike in Iran, Bloomberg reported.
Later, Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu became the first high-ranking Israeli official to respond to the killing of the Hamas leader, writing on X that "this is the right way to clean the world of this filth."
His comments were made despite reports in the Israeli media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered his ministers to remain silent about the nighttime killing in the Iranian capital.
Recall that in April, the IDF killed three of Haniyeh's sons in an attack in the northern Gaza Strip.
Yesterday, July 30, in response to Hezbollah's shelling of the Golan Heights, the IDF conducted an airstrike on the Lebanese capital Beirut. As a result of the attack, according to Israeli sources, senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed.
