Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran
Stockholm, July 31 (Hibya) - Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was targeted and killed in Tehran, Hamas said in a statement early Wednesday morning.
Hamas said in a statement that it mourned the death of Haniyeh, who was “killed in a treacherous Zionist raid on his home in Tehran after attending the swearing-in ceremony of Iran's new president.”
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards confirmed Haniyeh's death on Iranian television.
While Haniyeh's death hurts Hamas, he was not involved in military operations in Gaza, and the group has survived assassinations of its leaders in the past.
In 2004, Israel killed Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin and co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi in attacks in Gaza.
Haniyeh's death came hours after Israel said it had killed Hezbollah's top military commander, Fouad Shoukour, in an air strike on a suburb south of Beirut in retaliation for a rocket attack that killed 12 children over the weekend.
The United States was leading a global diplomatic effort to prevent tensions between Israel and Tehran-backed Hezbollah from escalating into a regional conflict.
Lebanon's foreign minister said the Beirut attack came as a shock after assurances from Israel's allies that the country was planning a “limited response” that would not “lead to war”.
“This is what we feared, and we hope it will not lead to a war,” Abdullah Bou Habib told the Guardian. We didn't expect to be hit in Beirut; we thought these were red lines that the Israelis would respect,” Abdullah Bou Habib told the Guardian.
Albania News Agency