Live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran, group blames Israel

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran after attending the inauguration of the country’s new president, Iran and the militant group said early Wednesday.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion quickly fell on Israel, which has 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.

Iran’s Fars news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guard, posted on X that Haniyeh was stationed in the north of Tehran, and a projectile from the air killed him around 2:30 a.m. Further investigations are underway and details will be announced later, Fars added.

Turkey strongly condemned Haniyeh’s death as a “heinous assassination” and blamed the killing on the Israeli government.

A Foreign Ministry statement pointed to Haniyeh’s death as proof that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “has no intention of achieving peace.”

It claimed the attack was meant to escalate the war in Gaza to a regional scale and cautioned that larger conflicts could engulf the region if the international community does not intervene.

Turkey is a vocal critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and often expresses support for Hamas. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly hosted Haniyeh.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah says they are still searching for the body of a top commander targeted in an Israeli strike in Beirut.

The Iran-backed group’s first comment after the strike targeting Fouad Shukur came hours after his death Tuesday and followed the overnight strike in Tehran that killed Haniyeh. Hezbollah did not comment about the Hamas leader’s death.

Israel claimed late Tuesday that they had killed Shukur, who they said was behind a rocket attack on Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 youths.

Hezbollah said civil defense workers were still searching for his body and others under the rubble of the building Israel struck.

The Lebanese Health Ministry said at least two children and a woman were killed in the attack, while 74 others were wounded.

Like most of Hezbollah’s military officials, little is known about Shukur, who was also known as Sayed Mohsen. Washington blames him for planning and staging the truck bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service members in 1983.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, expressed condolences on the death of Haniyeh and said his blood will never be wasted.

Kanaani said on his Telegram channel that the killing is under investigation by the relevant institutions in Iran.

“Undoubtedly, the pure blood of this brave warrior, who spent his life in an honorable fight against the Zionist usurping regime and on the way to the liberation of Holy Quds and the liberation of the oppressed Palestinian nation from the clutches of the Zionist occupation, will never be wasted.”

The Israeli military says it is not changing its preparedness guidelines for civilians, such as staying close to a bomb shelter, following reports that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed.

Israel has not commented directly on the assassination, nor claimed responsibility for it.

A senior Palestinian official in the West Bank has condemned Haniyeh’s assassination as a “cowardly act.”

“We strongly denounce and condemn the assassination of the head of the Political Bureau, the national leader, Ismail Haniyeh,” Hussein al-Sheikh, the Palestinian Authority’s civil affairs chief, wrote on X. “We consider it a cowardly act, this pushes us to remain more steadfast in the face of the occupation, and the necessity of achieving the unity of the Palestinian forces and factions.”

In May, Haniyeh was among the names listed by the chief prosecutor of the world’s top war crimes court seeking arrest warrants over actions taken during the Israel-Hamas war.

Karim Khan accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, along with three Hamas leaders — Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh — of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.

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 of the killing.

Hamas senior official Moussa Abu Marzouk said that Haniyeh’s assassination will not go unanswered, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Wednesday. He also called the assassination a cowardly act.

Hamas said in a statement that Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.”

“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 Haniyeh a martyr,” the short statement read.

In April, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren.

In an interview with the Al Jazeera satellite channel at the time, Haniyeh said the killings would not pressure Hamas into softening its positions amid ongoing cease-fire negotiations with Israel. He said Israel was acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.”

Haniyeh’s apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as United States President Joe Biden’s administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage release deal.

CIA Director Bill Burns was in Rome on Sunday to meet with senior officials from Israel, Qatar and Egypt in the latest round of talks. Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is in the region for talks with U.S. partners.

There was no immediate reaction to the reports of Haniyeh’s assassination from the White House.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said early Wednesday.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion quickly fell on Israel, which has 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.

Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. Iran gave no details on how Haniyeh was killed, and the Guard said the attack was under investigation.

Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attack.

Israel itself did not immediately comment but it often doesn’t when it comes to assassinations carried out by their Mossad intelligence agency.

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