The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas confirmed on Wednesday the assassination of its leader, Ismail Haniyehin an attack, attributed to Israel, in Tehran, where he was on an official visit. The Palestinian Islamist group has promised that his death “will not go unpunished.”

“The leader brother, martyr fighter Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the movement, died as a result of a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehranafter participating in the inauguration ceremony of the new Iranian president,” the group confirmed in a statement.

For now, Israeli authorities have not confirmed any attack in Tehrannor the death of Haniyeh, who attended the inauguration of the country’s new president, Masud Pezeshkian, in the Iranian capital on Tuesday. “Do not consider those who have been killed in the path of Allah as dead, but they are alive with their lord, receiving sustenance,” the group said about the death of Haniyeh, the number one in Hamas’ political bureau, who lived in self-exile in Qatar.

“It is a jihad of victory or martyrdom,” the group added. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has confirmed Haniyeh’s death in an attack in Tehran, in which one of his bodyguards was also killed. While Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas – from the rival Fatah faction – has condemned the “assassination” of Haniyeh by “the occupation”.

“Nothing will stop us on that path”

Sami Abu Zahri, a Hamas official in the enclave, said that “the martyrdom of the group’s leaders, will not break the will of the movement or the Palestinian people.” “Enthusiasm grows with every drop of blood that desires the freedom of this pure land. And the blood of the leaders is nothing but the blood of the sons of our people. This is a great price and we are willing to pay for the liberation of Jerusalem and Nothing will stop us on that path“, Abu Zahri said.

Although Haniyeh had been living in Qatar since 2019, his family home in the Al Shati refugee camp near Gaza Cityhas been the target of Israeli attacks on several occasions since October, in which she lost about 60 relatives, including three sons, three grandchildren and a sister.

The news of Haniyeh’s death comes just hours after Israel confirmed having killed the military chief of the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah, Fuad Shukr, “the group’s top military commander and a close adviser to the organization’s leader Hassan Nasrallah, in retaliation for the attack that killed 12 children on Saturday in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

He was born in a refugee camp

Haniyeh was born in the Al Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. occupied by Egypt in 1962He studied at the Islamic University of Gaza, where he first became involved with Hamas, and graduated with a degree in Arabic literature in 1987. He was appointed to head a Hamas office in 1997, and rose through the ranks of the organization.

Haniyeh topped the list of Hamas won the 2006 Palestinian legislative electionsand became Palestinian prime minister in a national unity government with President Mahmoud Abbas’s secular Fatah, but disagreements between the two parties ended with Fatah’s expulsion from the Strip and the Islamists’ seizure of power by force in the enclave, which they have ruled de facto since 2007.

Haniyeh was the leader of Hamas in the Gaza Strip from 2012 until February 2017, when He was replaced by Yahya Sinwar, cConsidered the mastermind of the October 7 attacks and the true leader of the group, who had the final say in recent negotiations with Israel for a truce.

A few months later, on May 6, 2017, Haniyeh was elected chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, replacing Khaled Mashal; and since 2019 he moved from the Strip to Qatar, from where he was responsible for the leadership and representation of the Islamist group, especially in the international arena.