Iran has accused Israel of assassinating Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in a strike in Tehran and vowed to avenge his death as the attack dramatically raised the risk of a further escalation of regional hostilities.
Haniyeh was killed in a strike on his residence in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday morning, Hamas and Iranian officials said.
The attack came hours after Israel said it had killed a senior Hizbollah commander in an air strike on Beirut, the Lebanese capital, heightening fears that the region was sliding towards a full-blown war.
Israel did not claim responsibility for Haniyeh’s death, and typically neither confirms nor denies assassination attempts in Iran. But Israeli officials have previously said they would hold all Hamas leaders accountable for the Palestinian militant group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel.
On Wednesday, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant said: “The operation tonight in Beirut was precise and professional. We do not seek war, but we are preparing for all possibilities.”
Haniyeh, believed to be in his 60s, had been living in exile in Qatar but often travelled to Iran, which supports Hamas as part of its so-called axis of resistance. He had attended the inauguration of Iran’s new president Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday and met him earlier in the day.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei threatened Israel with a call to “avenge [Haniyeh’s] blood”, saying it was a “duty” for Iran because the incident “occurred within the territory of the Islamic republic”.
He added: “The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our home and caused us grief, but it has also paved the way for severe punishment for itself.”
Haniyeh, who has been Hamas’s political leader since 2017, is the highest-profile member of the group to be killed following the October 7 attack and Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza. He was the main interlocutor for mediators trying to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages held in the coastal strip.
Qatar, which has been one of the lead mediators with Hamas during the negotiations to try to free the Israeli hostages, said Haniyeh’s killing was a “heinous crime and dangerous escalation”.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said: “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?”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken told a television news programme in Singapore that the assassination of Haniyeh was “something we were not aware of or involved in”.
“I’ve learned over many years never to speculate on the impact that an event has had on something else,” he said, adding “the best way to bring the temperature down everywhere is through the ceasefire in Gaza”.
Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran marks a huge embarrassment for Iran and risks the regime retaliating against Israel.
Tensions in the region had already soared after Israel said it had killed Fuad Shukr, a senior Hizbollah commander, in an air strike on a residential building in southern Beirut on Tuesday.
About 24 hours after the strike, Hizbollah confirmed Shukr’s death. His body was found in the rubble of the building targeted by Israel.
The Israel Defense Forces described Shukr as Hizbollah’s most senior military commander and right-hand man to Hassan Nasrallah, leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group.
The attack, Israel’s first targeting of a Hizbollah leader in Beirut since October 7, came in retaliation for a rocket strike on Saturday that killed 12 young people on a football pitch in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel blamed Hizbollah for that attack, the deadliest incident for civilians in Israeli-controlled territory since the two sides started exchanging almost daily fire nearly 10 months ago.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said the Israeli strike on Beirut on Tuesday, carried out with a drone that launched three rockets, had targeted the area around Hizbollah’s governing Shura Council in the densely populated Haret Hreik neighbourhood, a stronghold of the group.
A large explosion ripped through the area, with television footage showing several floors of a residential building badly damaged and plumes of smoke. At least three people were killed — a woman and two children — and a further 74 people were injured, some critically, the Lebanese health ministry said.
Hizbollah, considered one of the world’s most heavily armed non-state actors, has previously warned Israel against “any assassination on Lebanese soil against a Lebanese, Syrian, Iranian or Palestinian”, suggesting the Israeli strike would be met with a decisive response.
In a statement mourning Haniyeh, Hizbollah said his killing would “increase the determination and stubbornness of the resistance fighters in all resistance arenas to continue the path of jihad and will make their resolve stronger in confronting [Israel]”.
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, said at a news conference in Tehran on Wednesday: “Hamas and the resistance remain set on a clear strategy . . . that does not deviate — not with the death of one leader nor of 10 leaders.”
The group’s armed wing posted on Telegram that Haniyeh’s assassination “takes the battle to new dimensions and . . . will have large repercussions on the entire region”.
Turkey’s foreign ministry condemned the killing, warning that it risked widening “the war in Gaza to a regional scale”.
It added: “If the international community does not take action to stop Israel, our region will face much larger conflicts.”
The US has been leading a flurry of diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions between Israel and Hizbollah since the rocket attack on the Golan Heights.
UK foreign secretary David Lammy said on Tuesday that the risk of further escalation “and regional destabilisation is now more acute than ever”.
“A widening of this conflict is in nobody’s interest,” Lammy said in a statement to parliament. “Indeed, the consequences could be catastrophic. That is why we continue to press for a diplomatic solution.”
Additional reporting by Adam Samson in Ankara
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