Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said early Wednesday. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion fell on Israel, which has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. Iran gave no details on how Haniyeh was killed, and the Guard said the attack was under investigation.
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attack sparked the latest Israel-Hamas war.
The apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as United States President Joe Biden’s administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage release deal. Senior officials from the U.S., Israel, Qatar and Egypt were set to meet for the latest round of talks.
Here’s the latest:
Turkey condemns Haniyeh’s death, alleging the attack aims to escalate regional fighting
ANKARA, Turkey – Turkey strongly condemned the “heinous assassination” of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, attributing the killing to the Israeli government.
A Foreign Ministry statement said the killing had shown that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “has no intention of achieving peace.”
The ministry statement said the attack aimed to escalate the Gaza conflict to a regional scale and cautioned that larger conflicts could engulf the region if the international community does not intervene to halt Israel’s actions.
Turkey is a vocal critic of Israel’s military actions in Gaza and often expresses support for Hamas. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has regularly hosted Haniyeh.
Palestinian detainees taken by Israeli authorities faced torture and mistreatment, UN report says
GENEVA — The United Nations human rights office issued a report Wednesday saying Palestinian detainees taken by Israeli authorities since the Oct. 7 attacks have faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks and other torture and mistreatment.
The report on detention says Israel’s prison service held more than 9,400 “security detainees” as of the end of June, and some have been held in secret without access to lawyers or respect for their legal rights.
A summary of the report, based on interviews with former detainees and other sources, decries a “staggering” number of detainees and raised concerns about arbitrary detention.
“The testimonies gathered by my office and other entities indicate a range of appalling acts, such as waterboarding and the release of dogs on detainees, amongst other acts, in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” said U.N. Human Rights Chief Volker Türk in a statement.
Findings in the report, one of the most extensive of its kind, could be used by International Criminal Court prosecutors who are looking into crimes committed in connection with the Oct. 7 attacks and its aftermath, including Israel’s blistering military campaign that is ongoing in Gaza.
Authors of the report said its content was shared with the Israeli government. The Associated Press has contacted the Israeli diplomatic mission for comment.
‘I don’t think that war is inevitable,’ US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin says
MANILA, Philippines — United States Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that even with the events of the past 24 hours, Washington hoped that Israel would be able to come to a diplomatic solution and deescalate the situation.
“I don’t think that war is inevitable,” he told reporters in Manila, Philippines. “I maintain that. I think there’s always room and opportunity for diplomacy, and I’d like to see parties pursue those opportunities.”
He added, however, that the United States has for some time been looking at events on Israel’s border with Lebanon with “concern.”
“Again, we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that we keep things from turning into a broader conflict throughout the region.”
Asked what the U.S. would do if the conflict did escalate into a wider war, Austin reiterated his comments from the previous day that “if Israel is attacked, we certainly will help defend Israel.”
“You saw us do that in April, you can expect to see us do that again,” he said. “But we don’t want to see any of that happen. We’re going to work hard to make sure that … we’re doing things to help take the temperature down and address the issues through diplomatic means.”
Hezbollah says they are still searching for the body of commander targeted in Israeli strike
BEIRUT — The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Wednesday they were still searching for the body of a top commander targeted in an Israeli strike in Beirut.
The Iran-backed group’s first comment after the strike targeting Fouad Shukur came hours after his death Tuesday and followed the overnight strike in Tehran that killed Haniyeh. Hezbollah did not comment about the Hamas leader’s death.
Israel claimed late Tuesday that they had killed Shukur, who they said was behind a rocket attack on Majdal Shams in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 youths.
Hezbollah said civil defense workers were still searching for his body and others under the rubble of the building Israel struck.
Like most of Hezbollah’s military officials, little is known about Shukur, who was also known as Sayed Mohsen. Washington blames him for planning and staging the truck bombing of a Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 American service members in 1983.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said that at least two children and a woman were killed in the attack, while 74 others were wounded.
Palestinians leaders condemn Haniyeh’s reported killing as a ‘cowardly act’
In the West Bank on Wednesday, the internationally backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned Haniyeh’s killing, calling it a “cowardly act and dangerous development.”
Political factions in the occupied territory called for strikes in protest at the killing.
Senior Palestinian official Hussein al-Sheikh in the West Bank also condemned Haniyeh’s assassination as a “cowardly act.”
“We strongly denounce and condemn the assassination of the head of the Political Bureau, the national leader, Ismail Haniyeh,” the Palestinian Authority’s civil affairs chief wrote on X. “We consider it a cowardly act, this pushes us to remain more steadfast in the face of the occupation, and the necessity of achieving the unity of the Palestinian forces and factions.”
Hamas senior official Moussa Abu Marzouk, meanwhile, said that Haniyeh’s assassination will not go unanswered, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported Wednesday. He also called the assassination a cowardly act.
Apparent assassination of Hamas le
ader comes at a precarious time for Biden
WASHINGTON — The apparent assassination comes at a precarious time, as United States President Joe Biden’s administration has tried to push Hamas and Israel to agree to at least a temporary cease-fire and hostage release deal.
CIA Director Bill Burns was in Rome on Sunday to meet with senior officials from Israel, Qatar and Egypt in the latest round of talks. Separately, Brett McGurk, the White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, is in the region for talks with U.S. partners.
There was no immediate reaction to the reports of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination from the White House.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran says
TEHRAN, Iran — Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said early Wednesday.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination but suspicion immediately fell on Israel, which has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. Iran gave no details on how Haniyeh was killed, and the Guard said the attack was under investigation.
Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yahya Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attack.
Analysts on Iranian state television immediately began blaming Israel for the attack.
Israel itself did not immediately comment but it often doesn’t when it comes to assassinations carried out by their Mossad intelligence agency.
