Ismail Haniyeh, the top Hamas leader He was assassinated in a targeted attack at his residence in Iran. This was a harsh face-off of the Palestinian organisation’s international diplomacy.
Hamas claimed that Haniyeh, 62, and one of his bodyguards were killed following an “Israeli” raid. The group alleged that Haniyeh was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran.”
The killings took place a day after Haniyeh attended the swearing-in ceremony of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and also met Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Serving as a negotiator in the Israel-Gaza war, Ismail Haniyeh was seen by many diplomats as a moderate in contrast to many hardline Hamas members, reports news agency Reuters.
Everything you need to know about Ismail Haniyeh:
1. Ismail Haniya was born in 1963 in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza.
2. He joined Hamas in the late 1980s and rose rapidly before reaching the top post in 2017. He first came to prominence as a close aide to Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
3. Ismail Haniyeh was a student activist at the Islamic University in Gaza City. He joined the Palestinian Authority when it was formed in 1987 during the first Palestinian intifada (uprising).
4. He served several terms in Israeli prisons in the 1980s and 1990s.
5. He was arrested along with hundreds of others in 1992 and deported from Gaza to Lebanon, returning to Gaza the following year.
6. Ismail Haniyeh, a Sunni Muslim, played a key role in boosting Hamas’s fighting capabilities, partly by fostering ties with Shi’ite Muslim Iran. In 2017, he led a high-level Hamas delegation to Iran, where he met Khamenei.
7. He became Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas’ victory in the 2006 legislative elections, but was dismissed by President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007.
8. Ismail Haniyeh continued to commute between Turkey and Doha, the capital of Qatar, allowing him to avoid travel restrictions to the Gaza Strip and act as a negotiator in the Gaza ceasefire talks or to talk to Iran.
9. His three sons – Hazam, Amir and Mohammed – He was killed when his car was hit by an Israeli airstrike on April 10 They were driving. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the men were “heading to carry out terrorist activity in the area of central Gaza”. Hamas said Haniyeh also lost four of his grandchildren in the attack.
10. Ismail Haniyeh denied Israel’s claim that his sons were Hamas fighters.
(With inputs from Reuters)