Ismail Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders, was assassinated in Iran, the country’s Revolutionary Guard and Hamas said Wednesday, a severe blow to the Palestinian group that threatens to engulf the region in further conflict.

Iran and Hamas accused Israel of killing Haniyeh, who led the group’s political operations from exile in Qatar. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the newly elected president of Iran, Hamas’ main backer.

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Israel Struck Hezbollah Senior Member Hours Before

Hours before the assassination, Israel said it had struck Fuad Shukr, a senior member of Hezbollah, a Lebanese militia that is also backed by Iran and has been fighting a low-level war with Israel since October. The two strikes have suddenly shifted the calculus in the Middle East, after a month in which Israel and Hamas had appeared to edge closer to a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Such a deal was expected to lead to a truce between Israel and Hezbollah.

Now, the focus is on how Hamas and Hezbollah will respond to the attacks on their leaders, how Iran will react to a strike on its territory, and whether either reaction leads to the outbreak of a wider regional war. An Israeli strike on Iranian commanders in Syria in April led Iran to fire hundreds of missiles at Israel. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said Haniyeh’s assassination would prompt a “harsh punishment.”

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Haniyeh was a key figure in Hamas’ cease-fire negotiations with Israel, and his assassination makes the prospects for a deal even more unclear.

Israel’s military has not commented on his death and said it does not respond to reports in the foreign news media. In recent years it has carried out a number of high-profile assassinations in Iran, rattling the country’s leaders and prompting a security overhaul including the ouster of a top security official.

Here’s What Else to Know

— While Israel rarely comments on its actions in Iran, it is usually more open about its strikes in Lebanon. On Tuesday night, the Israeli military swiftly announced a separate strike in Beirut’s southern suburbs on Shukr, who it described as a senior commander responsible for a strike Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers in an Israeli-controlled town. It is unclear how Hezbollah will respond to a particularly brazen strike on a senior commander in the Lebanese capital.

— Haniyeh had long played a central role in Hamas, helping lead the group through multiple wars with Israel and through elections, though it is unclear how much control he and other exiled Hamas political leaders exercised over the group’s leaders in Gaza and its military wing, which carried out the Oct. 7 attack.

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— The United States was not informed of the strike that killed Haniyeh ahead of time, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said during a trip to Singapore on Wednesday. “This is something we were not aware of or involved in,” Blinken said during an interview with Channel News Asia. He added that the Biden administration was continuing to focus on de-escalating the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

— Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, takes office facing the major security breach of failing to protect an ally. It raises questions about the safety of Iran’s top leaders who were in close contact with Haniyeh. Khamenei met with him on Tuesday.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Patrick Kingsley, Farnaz Fassihi, Adam Rasgon and Ronen Bergman/Arash Khamooshi
c.2024 The New York Times Company