Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas’ top leaders, was assassinated in Tehran, Hamas and Iranian state media announced Wednesday morning, marking a significant escalation in the Middle East.
In a statement on Iran’s state media, Hamas said its political leader was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran,” and vowed revenge. Haniyeh, who was one of Hamas’ top leaders for nearly two decades, was in Iran for the country’s presidential inauguration.
Since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, in which the militant group killed some 1,200 Israelis and took around 250 others hostage, Israel’s leaders have vowed revenge on Hamas officials. In the 10 months since, Israel’s airstrikes and ground operations have killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians.
Israel, which has in recent years carried out a number of high-profile assassinations in Iran and elsewhere, has not yet commented on Haniyeh’s killing. In 2004, Israel carried out an airstrike in Gaza killing Hamas’ then-leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi. The same year, it assassinated one of the militant group’s founders, Ahmed Yassin, in Gaza City.
In recent months, Haniyeh led efforts to negotiate a cease-fire from exile in Qatar.
Haniyeh’s alleged assassination came only hours after the Israel Defense Forces claimed they killed senior Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukur in an airstrike on the Lebanese capital of Beirut on Tuesday. The IDF said it had targeted the commander responsible for a rocket attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday that struck a football pitch, killing 12 people, including children.
Washington and European capitals fear the tensions could quickly snowball into a regional conflict. Leaders and officials in France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. have been reaching out to counterparts in Lebanon, Israel and Iran to forestall a wider regional war.
The stakes are particularly high for Paris and Rome, which have hundreds of troops stationed in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
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