A Top Hamas Leader Is Killed in Iran

 

Updated

July 31, 2024, 2:30 a.m. ET3 minutes ago

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/31/world/israel-gaza-war-hamas-iran

 

A Top Hamas Leader Is Killed in Iran

Hamas accused Israel of killing Ismail Haniyeh, who was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president. He was a key player in cease-fire negotiations.

 

Farnaz Fassihi Patrick Kingsley Adam Rasgon and Ronen Bergman

 

Here’s the latest on the assassination.

Ismail Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders, was assassinated in Iran, the country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hamas said on Wednesday, a severe blow to the Palestinian group that threatens to engulf the region in further conflict.

 

Hamas accused Israel of killing Mr. Haniyeh, who led the group’s political operations from exile in Qatar. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the newly elected president of Iran.

 

Mr. Haniyeh was a key figure in Hamas’s stalled cease-fire negotiations with Israel, and his assassination makes the prospects for a deal even more unclear.

 

Israel’s military has not commented and said it does not respond to reports in the foreign news media. In recent years it has carried out a number of high-profile assassinations in Iran, rattling the country’s leaders and prompting a security overhaul including the ouster of a top security official.

 

On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had carried out a separate strike on a Hezbollah commander in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The target of that strike, Fuad Shukr, was a senior commander responsible for a strike on Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers in an Israeli-controlled town, according to Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the Israeli military’s chief spokesman. Hezbollah and Israel have not announced Mr. Shukr’s death.

 

After Israel’s nine months of conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah, the succession of fast-moving events since Saturday has once again brought the region into uncertain territory. Until late last week, there were raised hopes that Israel and Hamas might finally agree to a deal to suspend a war that they have fought since Oct. 7, when Hamas’s attack on southern Israel prompted Israel’s devastating bombardment and invasion of Gaza.

 

Mediators had also hoped that a truce in Gaza might encourage one between Israel and Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia that began exchanging fire with Israel in solidarity with Hamas in the hours after the Oct. 7 attack.

 

After the killing of two senior leaders from the two groups within a matter of hours, the calculus has again shifted. Now, the focus is on how Hamas and Hezbollah will respond to the attacks on their leaders; how Iran will react to a strike on its territory; and whether either reaction leads to the outbreak of a wider regional war. An Israeli strike on Iranian commanders in Syria in April led Iran to fire hundreds of missiles at Israel.

 

Here’s what else to know:

 

Iran is holding an emergency meeting of its Supreme National Security Council at the residence of the supreme leader. The commander in chief of the Quds forces, who oversees the network of militias, is also at the meeting, according to two Iranian officials.

 

Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, takes office facing the major security breach of failing to protect an ally. It raises questions about the safety of Iran’s top leaders who were in close contact with Mr. Haniyeh. The country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, met with him on Tuesday.

 

Mr. Haniyeh became the leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2006. He moved to Qatar in 2017 when he was named the group’s overall political leader. In Gaza, he was succeeded by Yahya Sinwar, who is considered an architect of the Oct. 7 attacks, in which around 1,200 people were killed and around 250 taken hostage.

 

In April, three of Mr. Haniyeh’s sons were killed in an Israeli strike near Gaza City. Israel identified the three adult sons as Amir, Mohammad and Hazem Haniyeh and said all three were Hamas military operatives.

 

Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.