Israel has officially acknowledged its involvement in the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian movement Hamas, during the summer of this year. This was confirmed by the defense minister of the Jewish state, Israel Katz.
Haniyeh was killed on July 31 in Tehran, where he had arrived for the inauguration of Iran's president. It is believed that a strike was carried out on the house where Haniyeh was staying.
At the time, many suspected that Israel was behind the explosion, although its leaders only hinted at their involvement.
Katz also noted that Israel has eliminated other Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, assisted in the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and destroyed Iranian anti-aircraft installations. Now, according to the defense minister, Israel is focusing on the Yemeni Houthi rebels.
"We will strike at the strategic infrastructure of the Houthis and decapitate their leadership," Katz stated. "Just as we did with Haniyeh, (Yahya) Sinwar, and (Hassan) Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do the same in Hodeidah and Sanaa," he said, referring to the Hamas and Hezbollah leaders who were killed during Israeli attacks.
Who was Ismail Haniyeh?
The 62-year-old Haniyeh was the leader of Hamas's political wing and a prominent figure in the organization for decades. In recent years, Haniyeh led the group's political office from Qatar.
Ismail Haniyeh was born on January 29, 1963, in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. He began his career with Hamas by closely collaborating with the group's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, and joined the paramilitary organization during the First Intifada in the late 1980s.
Haniyeh, nicknamed "Abu al-Abd," became a member of the secret "collective leadership" group of the organization in 2004 following the assassination of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, two previous Hamas leaders.
In 2006, he became the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority after Hamas won the elections and has remained in the spotlight since then.
In 2017, he succeeded Khaled Mashal as the head of Hamas's political bureau, but shortly thereafter, he was placed on the U.S. list of international terrorists. The Donald Trump administration stated that this measure aimed to cut off his access to international financial resources.
He has been imprisoned several times for his involvement in the Intifada and subsequently left the Gaza Strip.
Following the attack on Israeli territory on October 7, during which Hamas militants killed at least 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostage, Haniyeh became a key figure in negotiations to end the war in the Gaza Strip.
However, Israeli officials have repeatedly blamed him for the failure of peace negotiations and accused him of refusing to release hostages still held in Gaza.
Despite his leadership position, Haniyeh has faced criticism within the group since the war began.
Reports have surfaced of disagreements between him and Sinwar, Hamas's military leader in Gaza, who was killed by Israel in October, regarding both the approach to ceasefire negotiations and military strategy.
In April, Israeli police arrested one of Haniyeh's sisters on suspicion of links to members of the movement. Soon after, three of his sons and four grandsons were killed in Israeli airstrikes.