Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in Tehran, Iran on July 31, the Palestinian militant group said. According to Iranian state media, Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed in an attack on the building he was staying in.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian when the incident occurred.
Hamas issued a statement condemning the attack and said Haniyeh was assassinated in “a treacherous Zionist attack on his residence in Tehran.” Iranian officials have not confirmed the allegation.
Here are some facts about the Hamas leader:
1. Ismail Haniya was born on January 29, 1962, in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City, Gaza Strip. His family, Palestinian refugees, fled their home near the present-day Israeli city of Ashkelon during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. He studied Arabic literature at the Islamic University of Gaza, graduating in 1987.
2. Haniyya’s involvement in politics began in the 1980s as a student leader at the Islamic University. He was a key figure in the founding of Hamas in 1987 and became a close adviser to Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. After Yassin’s assassination in 2004, Haniyya became deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau. In 2017, he replaced Khaled Mashaal as Hamas’ political chief.
3. In 1988, he was arrested by Israeli authorities for his involvement in the First Intifada, a widespread uprising against the Israeli occupation that began in 1987 and lasted until 1993. He spent six months in prison and was arrested again in 1989. In 1992, he was deported to South Lebanon along with 400 other Islamists.
4. In 2006, Haniyeh became Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, a position he held until 2007. Meanwhile, Hamas won a surprise majority in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council elections. However, internal strife with rival Fatah led to the dissolution of the government and the formation of an independent Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip, which Haniyeh led from 2007 to 2014.
5. Ismail Haniyeh was married and the father of five children. Three of his sons, Hazem, Amir and Mohammed, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza on April 10, 2024.
Israel vowed to kill Ismail Haniyeh and destroy Hamas after the October 7 attack, which killed 1,195 people. Since then, Israel’s war on Gaza has killed 39,400 people and wounded 90,923 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.