Ismail Haniyeh had been a key Hamas leader for over two decades, managing the group’s political affairs from exile in Qatar in recent years.
On Tuesday, Mr. Haniyeh joined other high-ranking members of Iran’s “axis of resistance,” which includes Hamas from Gaza, Hezbollah from Lebanon, and the Houthis from Yemen, to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president.
Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran, along with one of his bodyguards, according to a Hamas statement released on Wednesday. The group claimed Haniyeh was killed in what they described as a “treacherous Zionist raid” on his residence in Tehran.
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Who Was Ismail Haniyeh?
Ismail Haniyeh, a key Palestinian political leader, was born in 1963 in Gaza’s Shati refugee camp. He studied Arabic literature at the Islamic University of Gaza and became involved with Hamas during his university years.
Ismail Haniyeh was involved in the First Intifada protests and was imprisoned by an Israeli military court. After his release, he and other senior Hamas leaders were deported to Lebanon by Israeli authorities.
In 1997, Ismail Haniyeh took over as head of the Hamas office after the release of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin. In December 2005, he was elected to lead the Hamas list, which won the Legislative Council elections in January 2006.
Ismail Haniyeh became Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority following Hamas’s win in the 2006 elections. However, in 2007, President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed him, escalating the conflict between Fatah and Hamas.
During the Fatah-Hamas conflict, Haniyeh was blocked from entering Gaza from Egypt at the Rafah Border Crossing after his 2006 trip abroad. When he later tried to cross, gunfire erupted, resulting in the death of one bodyguard and injuries to his eldest son.
In 2016, Haniyeh succeeded Khaled Mashaal as the head of Hamas following elections.
