BEIRUT (AP) Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Tehran, Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard said early Wednesday, and Hamas blamed Israel for the attack.

Ismail Haniyeh
Israel has vowed to kill Haniyeh and other leaders of Hamas over the group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people and saw some 250 others taken hostage.

An Israeli military spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel often doesn’t when it comes to assassinations carried out by their Mossad intelligence agency.

Hamas said Haniyeh was killed “in a Zionist airstrike on his residence in Tehran after he participated in the inauguration of Iran’s new president.”

“Hamas declares to the great Palestinian people and the people of the Arab and Islamic nations and all the free people of the world, brother leader Ismail Ismail Haniyeh a martyr,” the terse statement said.

Haniyeh left the Gaza Strip in 2019 and had lived in exile in Qatar. The top Hamas leader in Gaza is Yehya Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attack.

Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian’s swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday. Iran gave no details on how Haniyeh was killed, and the Guard said the attack was under investigation.