Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh killed in airstrike in Iran

Hamas claims its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has been killed in an airstrike in Tehran that it blamed on Israel, putting the Middle East on edge for potentially even more violence.

Haniyeh, a chief negotiator for Hamas and based in Qatar, was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president on Tuesday. He was killed “in a treacherous Zionist airstrike on his residence” in the city, Hamas said in a statement early Wednesday. Iranian media said his bodyguard also died.

The Israeli military declined to comment. Israel often doesn’t comment on assassinations carried out by its Mossad intelligence agency.

His death will be seen as a major coup by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition, which vowed to eliminate Hamas leaders after the group’s October 7 attack.

“Hamas declares to the great Palestinian people and the people of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free people of the world, brother leader Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” Hamas said in its terse statement.

In another statement, the group quoted Haniyeh as saying that the Palestinian cause has “costs” and “we are ready for these costs: martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, and for the sake of God Almighty, and for the sake of the dignity of this nation.”

In the West Bank, the internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Haniyeh’s killing, calling it a “cowardly act and dangerous development.” Political factions in the occupied territory called for strikes in protest at the killing.

The move will also inflame tensions with Iran, and follows direct exchanges of fire between Tehran and Israel in April. Back then, the two sides responded to one another in a calibrated way to avoid triggering a regional war.

The attack is hugely embarrassing for Iran, and presents Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Masoud Pezeshkian with the challenge of how to respond. Since Pezeshkian’s election win earlier this month, he and Khamenei have suggested they want to improve ties with the West to get sanctions eased.

Haniyeh, in his early 60s, was key to the ongoing cease-fire talks between Israel and Hamas - relaying messages to and from the militant group’s leaders in Gaza - and his death has the potential to scupper them. The US has said in the past week that a deal’s getting closer, even if there’s still plenty to resolve.

Netanyahu has recently said that Israel’s military pressure on Hamas in Gaza is forcing the group to yield on some points.

Thousands of fighters from Hamas, designated a terrorist group by the US and European Union, swarmed into southern Israel on October 7, killing 1200 people and taking 250 hostage. Israel’s subsequent offensive on Gaza has killed almost 40,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Palestinian territory.

Haniyeh’s death follows an Israeli strike on Beirut late Tuesday aiming at a senior Hezbollah commander. That attack, which Israel says killed the commander, was a response to a deadly rocket assault in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights over the weekend.

Haniyeh was born in 1962 in Gaza. In 2006, when Hamas won parliamentary elections, he headed a short-lived Palestinian government, boycotted by most of the world because of its refusal to renounce violence against Israel.

A year later, in 2007, Hamas took full control of the Gaza Strip after a brief civil war with the more moderate Fatah party. Israel and Egypt have imposed a blockade on Gaza since then.

Haniyeh left Gaza in 2019 and has mostly lived in Doha, Qatar’s capital, in recent years. Qatar, along with Egypt and the US, is a key mediator between Hamas and Israel.

In April, Israel killed three of Haniyeh’s children in an airstrike in Gaza.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House to the killing of Haniyeh. The apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as the Biden administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage-release deal.

Oil prices jumped, with Brent crude climbing 1.5 per cent to just below $US80 a barrel as of 12.20 p.m. in Singapore, though it’s still down this week. Gold also rose.

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