Factbox-What we know so far about the assassination of Hamas leader

Factbox-What we know so far about the assassination of Hamas leader

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated early on Wednesday morning in Iran, the Palestinian militant group and Tehran said.

This is what we know about the killing of Haniyeh, which was widely assumed to have been carried out by Israel though its government made no claim of responsibility and said it would make no comment on the incident.

DETAILS OF ASSASSINATION

Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of Haniyeh, who was the face of Hamas' international diplomacy as the war triggered by the Islamist group's attack on Israel on Oct. 7 last year has raged in Gaza.

Haniyeh was killed around 2 a.m. (2200 GMT) on Wednesday, Iranian media reported. He was staying at "a special residence" for war veterans in north of Tehran, the Iranian capital.

NourNews, an outlet affiliated with Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said Haniyeh's residence was hit by an airborne projectile. The assassination was "a dangerous gamble to undermine Tehran's deterrence", it said.

POSSIBLE CONSEQUENCES

Hamas said it would continue the path it was following in the Gaza war, saying: "We are confident of victory."

Israel is not seeking to escalate war, but is prepared to handle all scenarios, Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said.

Gallant's comments during a visit to a missile defence battery were reported by Israeli media outlets. Media reports said he was referring specifically to the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah group that has ramped up since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

The prime minister of Qatar, which along with the United States and Egypt has acted as a mediator in Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas, suggested that Haniyeh's killing could jeopardise efforts to secure a truce.

"Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue lead us to ask: How can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on other side?" Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani wrote on X.

Egypt's foreign ministry said Haniyeh's killing and the lack of progress in ceasefire talks complicated the situation.

The news - which came less than 24 hours after Israel claimed to have killed Hezbollah's top military commander whom it said was behind a deadly rocket strike in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday - appears to set back any chances of an imminent ceasefire agreement in the Gaza war.

At the same time, the risk of a war between Israel and Hezbollah has grown since the attack in the Golan that killed 12 children in a Druze village, and the air strike meant to kill senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr.

Hezbollah said Shukr had been in a building in the southern suburbs of Beirut when it was targeted by Israel, but the group did not confirm his fate.

Still, a Hezbollah member of parliament said the heavily armed group would now be ready to fight a war with Israel.

The killing of its close ally Haniyeh on Iranian soil will put pressure on Tehran to react against Israel, which has been hunting Hamas leaders since militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking over 250 hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

In response, Israel launched a relentless ground and air offensive in densely populated coastal Gaza that has killed more than 39,400 people, according to Gaza health officials, and left more than 2 million facing a humanitarian crisis.

Haniyeh's assassination could also encourage Iran's proxies in the Middle East who support Hamas - Hezbollah, Yemen's Houthis and armed groups in Iraq - to seek revenge.

Iran will "defend its territorial integrity, dignity, honour, and pride, and will make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act" of killing Haniyeh in Tehran, President Masoud Pezeshkian said on Wednesday.