Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group has on Wednesday said that its leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was killed in his residence in Tehran, the capital of Iran.
The group stated that Haniyeh was attacked at his home in Tehran while attending the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
According to BBC Hausa, Hamas accused Israel of carrying out the attack that killed its leader and also killed one of Haniyeh’s bodyguards.
Hamas described the killing as a grave crime and has warned of severe retaliation.
Haniyeh had been a prominent figure in Hamas since 1980.
Although he served briefly as the Palestinian prime minister in 2006, he was ousted when Hamas took control of Gaza.
In 2017, Haniyeh became the head of Hamas’s political wing, and the U.S. listed him as a wanted terrorist the following year.
Haniyeh had been residing in Qatar for several years.
Israel has not yet officially commented on the claim, but Israel’s culture minister said Haniyeh’s death would “clean up the world.”
Israel intensified search of the the Hamas leader since the beginning of the Gaza war that killed over 40,000 Palestinians mostly women and children, and about 1,400 Israelites.
