Iranian state media praised Hamas “political chief” Ismail Haniyeh on Wednesday as a key figure who pushed Israel to the “brink of extinction,” celebrating the explicitly genocidal intent of Hamas leadership hours after an airstrike eliminated Haniyeh in the early morning hours of the day.
Haniyeh was in Tehran on Tuesday for the inauguration of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and was seen embracing the new president and later holding a personal meeting with “Supreme Leader” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hamas is a Sunni jihadist terror organization headquartered in Gaza which relies heavily on Iranian funding for its survival. Iranian leaders enthusiastically support Hamas’s goal of destroying the state of Israel and eradicating Jews from the Middle East. The State Department recently estimated that Iran invests $100 million in Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist organizations a year.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization, confirmed on Wednesday that the residence housing Haniyeh was hit by a “projectile,” killing the Hamas leader. The statement did not mention any other casualties. Iranian leaders later blamed “Zionists” for the attack, though at press time no state or entity has taken responsibility for the strike.
Haniyeh died with an estimated net worth of $4 billion. As a “political” operative, Haniyeh lived in luxury in Doha, Qatar, where he spent much of his time holding meetings with representatives of Hamas-friendly countries.
The government of Israel at press time has not commented on the matter, while the government of leftist American President Joe Biden denied being involved or having any information on the matter.
The state-run Iranian propaganda outlet PressTV applauded Haniyeh as a martyr who “pushed Zionist entity [Israel] to brink of extinction” in its obituary, noting favorably that he “played an active role in both the First and Second Intifada and served multiple prison terms.” It also lauded him for bringing his family into his jihad, noting that he had lost “at least 14 members of his immediate family” in terrorist operations against Israel.
Haniyeh celebrated the killing of his relatives. In April, following the death of three of his sons in an anti-terrorist operation, Haniyeh said he was grateful to Allah “for bestowing upon us the honor of their martyrdom.”
“Their pure blood is for the liberation of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa, and we will continue to march on our road, and will not hesitate and will not falter,” Haniyeh said. “With their blood, we bring about hopes, a future and freedom for our people and our cause.”
“His life and legacy … will continue to act as a beacon of inspiration for resistance forces against the US-backed Israeli occupation, which is already on the brink of extinction,” PressTV declared.
Iranian dictator Khamenei, who had personally met with Haniyeh hours before his death, vowed revenge in a statement on Wednesday, again accusing Israel, with American help, of eliminating the Hamas terror chief.
“The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our homeland and left us bereaved, but it also set the ground for a harsh punishment for itself,” Khamenei proclaimed. “He was not afraid of embracing martyrdom in the way of God and saving God’s servants, but we consider it our duty to avenge his blood in this bitter and horrific incident that came to pass in the Islamic Republic’s territory.”
Hamas itself similarly blamed a “cowardly Zionist assassination” for Haniyeh’s demise, referring to the attack as a “Nazi” act while celebrating Haniyeh’s role in the ongoing terror war that started when Hamas invaded Israel, killed hundreds, and engaged in widespread atrocities on October 7, 2023.
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“His life culminated in martyrdom during the noblest battle, ‘Al-Aqsa Flood’, fought by our people and the free ones of our nation in defence of Al-Aqsa and the sanctities,” Hamas declared. The terrorist group refers to the October 7 massacre as the “al-Aqsa Flood.”
“The criminal assassination of the leader Haniyeh in the heart of the Iranian capital is a significant and dangerous event that shifts the battle to new dimensions and will have major repercussions across the entire region,” Hamas warned. “The enemy miscalculated by expanding the scope of aggression, assassinating resistance leaders in various arenas, and violating the sovereignty of regional states.”
Israel declared war on Hamas, the governing entity of Gaza, following the October 7 attack, in which Hamas terrorists invaded Israeli territory and engaged in door-to-door massacres of entire families in residential communities. Eyewitnesses told law enforcement officials that the Hamas terrorists tortured their innocent victims, engaged in widespread acts of gang rape, and desecrated the corpses of the dead, on some occasions filming their acts and uploading them to the social media pages of their victims. Multiple incidents of infanticide and other child killings were also documented. An estimated 1,200 people were killed on that day, the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Eliminating the leader of the terrorist organization responsible for these atrocities, the Iranian mission to the United Nations said on Wednesday, was “part of the Palestinian genocide plan, especially in the past 10 months, and aimed at increasing insecurity in the West Asia region.”