Ismail Haniyeh assassinated by small short-range missile: IRGC

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated with a “short-range projectile with a warhead of approximately 7 kilograms” in Tehran on Wednesday.

In a statement released on Saturday, the IRGC said the attack originated from outside the immediate area where Haniyeh was staying.

“This action was designed and implemented by the Zionist regime and supported by the criminal government of America,” the IRGC statement added.

After three days, this marks the first time the IRGC has publicly disclosed the exact cause of Ismail Haniyeh’s martyrdom, who had traveled to Iran for the inauguration of President Masoud Pezehskian.

The IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency had previously released a photo of the damaged residence, stating that Haniyeh was martyred while staying on the fourth floor of a building in Zafaraniyeh in northern Tehran.

Iranian media, including the IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News Agency, previously reported, quoting Khaled Qaddoumi, Hamas’ representative in Tehran, that Haniyeh’s death was caused by a missile or rocket fired from outside the building toward the room where he was staying.

This contradicts reports by The New York Times and Telegraph, which claimed that the attack was carried out by planting a bomb in Haniyeh’s room.

The Telegraph reported that Israel’s intelligence agency, Mossad, hired Iranian security agents to plant explosives in three separate rooms of a building where a Hamas leader was staying.

On Friday, thousands of people attended Haniyeh’s funeral prayer at a mosque in Qatar’s capital, Doha, where the Hamas chief had lived along with members of the group’s political office.

His assassination came hours after top Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in an Israeli air attack on the southern suburbs of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut.