Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been killed in Tehran, the Palestinian militant group Hamas has said.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the Islamist faction mourned the death of Haniyeh who it said was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran”.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which had vowed to kill Haniyeh and other Hamas leaders over the group’s October 7 attack on Israel that killed 1200 people with some 250 others taken hostage.
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Iranian state television reported on Haniyeh’s death early on Wednesday and analysts immediately began blaming Israel for the attack.
Israel itself did not immediately comment but it often does not when it comes to assassinations carried out by is Mossad intelligence agency.
Israel is suspected of running a years’ long assassination campaign targeting Iranian nuclear scientists and others associated with its atomic program.
In its military campaign on Gaza since the Hamas attack, Israel has killed more than 39,360 Palestinians and wounded more than 90,900, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry whose count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
— With AP