Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said Wednesday the killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was a “cowardly act” and urged Palestinians to remain united against Israel.
“President Mahmud Abbas of the State of Palestine strongly condemned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, deeming it a cowardly act and a serious escalation,” Abbas’s office said in a statement. “He urged our people and their forces to unite, remain patient, and stand firm against the Israeli occupation.”
A senior Hamas official said Wednesday that the killing of the Palestinian movement’s chief Ismail Haniyeh “will not go unanswered”.
“The assassination of leader Ismail Haniyeh is a cowardly act and will not go unanswered,” Hamas political bureau member Musa Abu Marzuk said in a statement.
Haniyeh was killed in an Israeli strike in Iran, where he had been to attend the inauguration of the country’s new president.
Haniyeh’s killing came after Israel on Tuesday struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, killing a senior commander of the Iran-backed group it said was responsible for a weekend rocket attack on the Israel-annexed Golan Heights.
“Brother, leader, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, died in a Zionist strike on his headquarters in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of the new (Iranian) president,” the Palestinian militant group said in a statement.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards also announced the death, saying Haniyeh’s residence in Tehran was “hit” and he was killed along with a bodyguard.
“The residence of Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political office of Hamas Islamic Resistance, was hit in Tehran, and as a result of this incident, him and one of his bodyguards were martyred,” said a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s Sepah news website.
The Guards said the cause of the incident was not immediately clear but it was “being investigated.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring back all hostages taken during the October 7 attack, which sparked the war in the Gaza Strip.
Haniyeh was elected head of the Hamas political bureau in 2017 to succeed Khaled Meshaal.