Haniyeh was killed by a missile that directly hit him at a government guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying.
The funeral of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was held in Qatar on Friday, two days after he was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran – the latest in a series of deaths of senior figures from the Palestinian militant group during the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. One of the series.
Khaled Meshaal, who is said to be the new leader of Hamas, was among the mourners at a large mosque just north of the capital Doha. Other senior Hamas officials and the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, also attended.
He will be laid to rest in a cemetery in Lusail City, north of Doha.
Haniyeh’s coffin, draped in a Palestinian flag, was carried into the mosque by hundreds of people along with the coffin of his bodyguard, who was killed in the same attack in Tehran on Wednesday.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zahri told Reuters by phone that he was attending the funeral: “Our message today to the occupiers (Israel) is that you are sinking into the dust and your end is coming closer than ever. Haniya’s blood will change all equations.”
Senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hiya told a news conference, citing witnesses who were with him, that Haniyeh was killed by a missile that directly hit him at a government guesthouse in Tehran where he was staying.
Both Iran and Hamas have accused Israel of the killing and vowed to retaliate against their enemy. Israel has not claimed or denied responsibility for the deaths.
The attack was one of several in which senior figures from Hamas, or the Lebanese movement Hezbollah, have been killed, raising concerns that the war between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza could escalate from the Red Sea to the Lebanon-Israel border. It is turning into a regional conflict that extends to the border.
In the United States, US President Joe Biden said Haniyeh’s death was not helpful to international efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, now in its 10th month.
“It doesn’t help,” Biden told reporters Thursday when asked if the action ruined the chances of a truce.
Qatar is leading the peace effort alongside Egypt and the US, Israel’s main allies.
Haniyeh has been the face of Hamas’s international diplomacy since the resurgence of war in Gaza and has indirectly participated in cease-fire negotiations.
Many diplomats see him as a moderate compared to more hard-line members of the Iran-backed group inside Gaza, although some Israeli observers have said he is seen by some on the Israeli side as an obstacle to a deal. were
Appointed to a top Hamas post in 2017, he evaded travel restrictions imposed by the Gaza blockade, moving between Turkey and Doha.
In May, the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor’s office requested arrest warrants for alleged war crimes against three Hamas leaders, including Haniyeh, as well as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Israeli and Palestinian leaders have denied the allegations.
Iran held Haniya’s last rites on Thursday, attended by his widow Amal.
“Say hello to all the martyrs of Gaza, to the leaders, to all the martyrs of Gaza, to all the Muslims,” Amal Haniyeh mourned next to his husband’s coffin.
Izzat al-Rashq, a member of Hamas’s politburo, appealed to people in all mosques around the world to pray for his soul.
“Today, Friday, be a day of great outrage to condemn the crime of murder and to reject the genocide in the Gaza Strip,” he said in a statement.
Although Israel has not said it carried out the killing, it has announced that it killed the Hamas military leader in Gaza, Mohammed Daif, in an airstrike last month. Hamas has not confirmed or denied Def’s death.
Hezbollah confirmed on Wednesday that its senior military commander, Fawad Shakar, had been killed in an Israeli strike on a building in Beirut.
Hezbollah vowed on Thursday to respond “definitely” to Shukar’s killing, saying it had crossed red lines and that the decades-old rivalry between the enemies had entered a new phase.
“We are looking for a real response, not a reactive response, and for real opportunities,” Hezbollah chief Seyed Hassan Nasrallah said in a televised address at the slain commander’s funeral. reaction”.