Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh reportedly killed in Tehran residence

TEHRAN, IRAN: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards announced on Wednesday (31 July) that Ismail Haniyeh, the chief of the Palestinian Hamas militant group, was killed in Tehran along with one of his bodyguards.

“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, resulting in the martyrdom of him and one of his bodyguards,” stated the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website.

The cause of the “incident” is under investigation and was not immediately clear.

Hamas mourned the death of Haniyeh, who it said was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.

Haniyeh arrived in Tehran on Tuesday to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian in parliament.

During his visit, he met with Pezeshkian and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday occurred amid escalating tensions following a Saturday rocket attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, raising concerns of war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Israel has accused Hezbollah of the attack that killed 12 children, but the Iran-backed Lebanese group has denied involvement.

Later on Tuesday, Israel retaliated by striking Hezbollah’s stronghold in southern Beirut, claiming it killed the commander responsible for the Golan strike.

Iran, which does not recognize Israel and views it as its arch-enemy, has repeatedly warned Israel against attacking Lebanon. “

“The Zionist regime (Israel) will make a great mistake with heavy consequences if it attacks Lebanon,” Pezeshkian said during a call with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to the Iranian president’s website.

Regional tensions have soared since the Israel-Hamas war began in October, involving Iran-backed militant groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.

In April, an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip killed three sons and four grandchildren of Ismail Haniyeh. The Israeli military, acknowledging the operation, identified the three sons as operatives within Hamas’s armed faction.

Israel launched a war in Gaza to eliminate Hamas and kill its leaders after the group attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in 1,200 deaths and the capture of more than 200 individuals.

The conflict has led to the deaths of at least 39,400 Palestinians and has left 90,996 injured, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a cornerstone of its foreign policy.

It has praised Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel but has denied any involvement.