Hamas said on Wednesday that its top leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli raid on his residence in Tehran, a claim that could not be immediately verified.
Iranian authorities are investigating Haniyeh’s assassination, and the findings will be announced very soon, according to the state news agency Tasnim.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said the cause of the “incident” was unclear and under investigation, according to AFP.
In a statement, the Palestinian militant group described Haniyeh’s death as an “assassination” and vowed retaliation. Other senior Hamas figures and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas echoed these sentiments.
Hamas said Haniyeh died after attending the inauguration of Iran’s new President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
“This treacherous Zionist raid will not go unanswered,” said Hamas political bureau member Musa Abu Marzuk.
Israel has not yet responded to the claims.
Haniyeh, 62, was widely considered Hamas’s overall leader. He was elected head of the group’s political bureau in 2017 and had been living in Qatar in recent years.
The U.S. Department of State designated Haniyeh a terrorist in 2018.
Haniyeh rose to prominence during the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s. He served briefly as Palestinian prime minister in 2006-2007 before being dismissed by President Abbas, a move he rejected as unconstitutional.
