Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar on Friday after he was killed in Tehran in an attack blamed on Israel that has fuelled regional tensions over the Gaza war.
Haniyeh was buried in Lusail, north of the capital Doha, after funeral prayers attended by thousands at the Gulf emirate’s largest mosque.
Haniyeh, the political head of the Palestinian armed group, played a key role in mediating talks aimed at ending the nearly 10-month-long war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The burial was attended by a limited number of people, including one of Haniya’s daughters, Sara, who shared a video on social media showing her pouring holy water on a pebbled grave, and then lowering her head to kiss it.
“In this moment, I buried my soul under the soil and I left. I left with all the pain in the world in my ribs,” she captioned the video uploaded to X.
On Friday, mourners gathered inside the Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahab Mosque, where Haniyya’s coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, was briefly carried inside amid chants from angry mourners.
Others prayed outside on mats in temperatures that reached 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit).
“He was an icon, a resistance leader … people are angry,” said Taher Adel, a 25-year-old Jordanian student living in the Qatari capital.
Haniyeh’s predecessor, Khaled Meshaal, speaking at the ceremony, said she had “served her cause, her people… and never abandoned them”.
Turkey and Pakistan declared a day of mourning on Friday in honour of Haniyeh, while Hamas called for a “day of fierce outrage”.
Many mourners in Doha wore scarves bearing the Palestinian flag with a checkered keffiyeh pattern and the message in English: “Free Palestine”.
High-profile murders
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed in an early morning “attack” on his residence in Tehran on Wednesday. Haniyeh had traveled to Iran a day earlier to attend the swearing-in ceremony of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Despite Hamas, Iran and other groups blaming Israel for the attack, Israel has not commented directly on it.
The killing of Qatar-based Haniyeh is one of a number of incidents since April that have escalated regional tensions during the Gaza war, which has also been joined by Iran-backed armed groups in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen.
A source close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement told AFP that Iranian officials met with representatives of these groups on Wednesday to discuss next steps, either “a simultaneous response from Iran and its allies or a gradual response from each side”.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant met his British counterpart John Healy on Friday and stressed “the importance of establishing a coalition” to defend Israel against Iran and its allies, Gallant’s office said.
Military chief Herzi Halevi told troops that Israel would respond “very strongly” to any attack, an army statement said.
France urged its citizens travelling to Iran to leave “due to the increased risk of escalation of military tensions”.
During the Gaza war, Hezbollah and Israeli forces engage in gunfire almost daily, and that was the case on Friday as well.
In Gaza, the Civil Defense Agency said several people were killed in the north of the territory, and the Israeli military said it had killed about 30 militants near Rafah in the south.
Haniyeh’s killing came hours after Israel attacked a southern suburb of Beirut, killing Fuad Shukr, a military commander for Lebanon’s Hamas ally Hezbollah.
Haniyeh’s deputy, Saleh al-Aruri, was assassinated in Beirut earlier this year.
On Thursday, Israel confirmed the death of Hamas military chief Mohammed Deif in an attack in Gaza in July.
Deal ‘put on hold’
Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the October 7 attack on Hamas that sparked the war in Gaza.
The attacks on southern Israel killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas militants have taken 251 people hostage, 111 of whom are still held in Gaza, 39 of whom the military says are dead.
At least 39,480 people have been killed in Gaza in Israel’s counteroffensive against Hamas, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, though the ministry did not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant deaths.
The fighting has sparked a dire humanitarian crisis in the besieged region. On Friday, the United Nations Satellite Center said nearly two-thirds of the buildings in Gaza, or 151,265 structures, have been damaged or destroyed during the war.
On Thursday, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led prayers for Haniyeh in Tehran, before threatening “harsh punishment” for her killing.
The New York Times quoted Middle Eastern officials as saying that Haniya was killed by an explosive device planted in a guesthouse in Tehran a few weeks ago.
Asked about the report, Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters that on the night of Shukra’s killing in Lebanon “there were no other Israeli air strikes in the entire Middle East.”
Israel said Shukar’s killing — for which Hezbollah said retaliation was “inevitable” — was a response to a rocket attack that killed 12 young men in the Golan Heights last week.
Iranian news agency Fars said the US report was a “lie”, and insisted the Hamas leader was killed by a “projectile”.
Analyst Hugh Lovett said Haniyeh’s killing would mean “the ceasefire deal with Israel is now completely over”.
US President Joe Biden spoke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday and reaffirmed his commitment to defending Israel’s security “against all threats from Iran”, the White House said.
“We have the basis for a ceasefire (in Gaza)…they should move forward on it now,” Biden told reporters after the talks.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
