Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Iran

Ismail Haniyeh, one of the most senior Hamas leaders, was assassinated in Iran, the country’s Revolutionary Guards Corps and Hamas said on Wednesday.

Hamas accused Israel of killing Haniyeh, who led the group’s political operations from exile in Qatar. Hamas made the statement on its official Telegram account. He was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of the newly elected president of Iran.

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

Israel’s military has not commented and said it does not respond to reports in the foreign news media.

On Tuesday, the Israeli military said it had carried out a separate strike on a Hezbollah commander in Beirut’s southern suburbs. The target of that strike, Fuad Shukr, was a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasralla.

The targeting of two senior leaders of two Iran-backed groups within a matter of hours could be an escalation in the region, which is reeling from months of high tensions since Israel began waging a war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip after it led an assault in Israel on October 7.