Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran

Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, has been killed in an attack in the Iranian capital Tehran.

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on Wednesday morning that Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed when their residence was hit in Tehran.

The statement said the attack is under investigation and the results will be announced later in the day.

The Palestinian resistance leader was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of the Iranian president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian.

Who was Ismail Haniyeh?

Haniyeh was born at Gaza’s al-Shati refugee camp in 1962.

He joined Palestinians’ First Intifada (Uprising) against the occupying entity in 1987, upon graduation from the Islamic University in Gaza.

The anti-occupation activism prompted Israeli officials to jail him for a short period that year.

He was imprisoned again for six month in 1988.

A year later, the Israeli authorities put him behind bars for three years on charges of belonging to Hamas.

Haniyeh spent a year in exile in Lebanon following release, but returned to Gaza afterwards.

In the 1990s, he climbed the ranks within the movement as a close aide and assistant of Hamas’ co-founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

In 2000s, Haniyeh consolidated his position as one of Hamas’ political leaders. The decade also witnessed him and Yasin escaping an Israeli assassination attempt.

Fronting Hamas, he reversed the Fatah movement’s drawn-out reign in 2006, when the resistance group scored a landslide victory in the Palestinian legislative elections.

Haniyeh then served as the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister until 2014, when he was dismissed by PA President Mahmoud Abbas.

He replaced Khaled Mashaal as Hamas’ politburo chief on May 6, 2017.