Ismail Haniyeh was the tough-talking face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy as war raged back in Gaza, where three of his sons were killed in an Israeli airstrike.
But despite the rhetoric, he was seen by many diplomats as a moderate compared to the more hardline members of the group inside Gaza.
Appointed to the Hamas top job in 2017, Haniyeh moved between Turkey and Qatar’s capital Doha, escaping the travel curbs of the blockaded Gaza Strip and enabling him to act as a negotiator in ceasefire talks or to talk to Hamas’ ally Iran.
“All the agreements of normalization that you (Arab states) signed with (Israel) will not end this conflict,” Haniyeh declared on Qatar-based Al Jazeera television shortly after Hamas fighters launched the October 7 raid.
Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Wednesday. After his killing, Hamas issued a statement saying that its leader was killed in “a treacherous Zionist raid on his residence in Tehran.
The Hamas top leader was in Tehran to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
Three of Haniyeh’s sons — Hazem, Amir, and Mohammad — were killed on April 10 when an Israeli air strike struck the car they were driving. Haniyeh also lost four of his grandchildren, three girls, and a boy, in an Israeli attack.
