A top Hamas leader has been killed after a targeted attack in Tehran.
Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas chief, was killed while attending the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s new president.
Their statement said that Haniyeh had been killed alongside a security guard in a targeted attack at their place of residence.
Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau, had been in the capital city as Masoud Pezeshkian was sworn in as President of the nation.
In a statement, Hamas blamed Israeli forces on the death of Haniyeh as they announced his death ‘to the Palestinian people and the Arab nation’.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House on the death of Haniyeh, while Israel have also not yet commented on his death.
Israel had vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
At least ten members of Haniyeh’s family had been killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this year, which included his sister.
The strike hit the Haniyeh family home in Al-Shati refugee camp, in the northern Gaza Strip, last month.
Pictures show how the building was reduced to rubble, with rescuers working at the scene.
The victims were extracted and taken to the local hospital, where white body bags were laid out on the ground and distraught mourners seen gathering.
Before their deaths, Haniyeh was believed to have had 13 sons and daughters. The Qatar-based Hamas leader said at the time said that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the war with Israel broke out on October 7.
