RIYADH: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh has been assassinated in Iran, the Palestinian group said.
Iran's state television announced the killing early Wednesday.
A statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards said Haniyeh and a security guard had been ambushed at their location, and an investigation was underway.
Haniyeh, who was head of the political office of Hamas's Islamic Resistance, traveled to Iran to be sworn in by reformist President Masoud Pezeshkian.
The 62-year-old Palestinian leader had previously met with Pezeshkian and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said: “This killing by the Israeli occupation of Brother Haniyeh is a serious escalation aimed at breaking the will of Hamas and the will of our people and achieving false goals. We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve their goals.”
“Hamas is a concept and an institution and not people. Hamas will continue on this path regardless of sacrifices and we are certain of victory.”
Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi, head of Yemen's Houthis, said: “Targeting Ismail Haniyeh is a heinous terrorist crime and a flagrant violation of laws and ideal values.”
Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas after the group carried out a deadly raid into settlements outside the Gaza Strip on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking hostages back to the Palestinian enclave.
Israel soon after launched a devastating military offensive in Gaza and has since killed over 40,000 people, mostly civilians.
Both sides have been trying to negotiate a deal for the release of the hostages, which would include an end to the fighting, with the help of the United States and regional negotiators.
The killing comes amid an escalation of hostilities between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah, which was blamed for an attack on the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights that killed 12 children over the weekend.
On Tuesday night, Israel struck a Hezbollah stronghold in southern Lebanon and said it had killed Fuad Shukr, head of Hezbollah's military operations room, who Israel said was responsible for the attack on the Golan Heights, a charge the Lebanese group denies.
Israel, which has yet to comment on Haniyeh's murder, has previously carried out assassinations in Iran of figures key to the Islamic republic's nuclear program.
In 2021, Israel assassinated Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran's top nuclear scientist.
But since the war in Gaza, Israel has carried out targeted attacks against key figures in Hamas and the IRGC, including Saleh Al-Arouri, a leader of the Palestinian group.
In April, Iran said its consulate in Damascus was destroyed and a top general was killed in an attack Tehran blamed on Israel.
Iran soon after sent a barrage of missiles at Israel, but all were shot down. Israel retaliated by attacking locations in Isfahan.
Further escalation between the two sides had been avoided through diplomacy, but Israel has continued to attack Iranian affiliates in Syria.
The scale of Israel's military response to the Hamas attacks has been condemned, and the International Court of Justice agrees that there may be a possible case that the country has engaged in genocide.
Israel has also been accused of collective punishment and using starvation as a weapon in the fight against the militant group.
