ISRAEL PUBLICLY ADMITS TO KILLING HAMAS LEADER ISMAIL HANIYEH IN TEHRAN

Mon 23 December 2024:

Israel’s defense minister on Monday publicly admitted for the first time that the Jewish state was behind the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31, 2024.

“We’ll severely cripple the Houthis, damage their strategic infrastructure and behead their leaders – just as we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza and Lebanon – we will do it in Hodeida and Sana’a,” Israel Katz said in a statement released by Israeli media.

Haniyeh was a Palestinian politician who served as chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau from May 2017 until his assassination in Tehran, where he was attending the inauguration of newly elected Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

At the time, Hamas said Haniyeh was killed, along with one of his bodyguards, by a “Zionist” airstrike on his residence.

The IRGC, which was responsible for protecting Haniyeh, said in early August that Haniyeh was assassinated with a “short-range projectile with a warhead of approximately 7 kilograms” in Tehran. The IRGC also asserted that “this action was designed and implemented by the Zionist regime and supported by the criminal government of America.”

Western media reports suggested that Haniyeh was killed by explosive devices planted well in advance in his room, possibly by agents recruited by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency. A report by The Telegraph says the devices were placed in three separate rooms of the guesthouse, pointing to a meticulously planned operation.

The assassination was carried out despite heightened security measures due to the inauguration which took place one day earlier, underscoring a severe breach in Iran’s security apparatus.

A report by the New York Times said at the time that over two dozen individuals, including senior intelligence officers, military officials, and staff at the guesthouse, had been detained in connection with the incident.

Haniyeh’s assassination was soon followed by a series of Israeli attacks killing other leaders of Iran-backed groups including Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah on September 27 and Haniyeh’s successor Yahya Sinwar on October 16.

-NEWS AGENCY

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