Who was Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's political leader killed in Tehran?

Haniyeh rose to prominence in 2006 when he became Palestinian Authority's prime minister

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  Two members of the hardline Palestinian group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, left, and Khalid Al-Hindi after they registered as candidates in the central election office, in Gaza city, December 1995. AFP

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  Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh waves as he arrives to attends a news conference in Gaza July 20, 2005. Reuters

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  Ismail Haniyeh waves during a rally in Gaza, December, 2005. Reuters

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  Ismail Haniyeh casts his ballots inside a polling station in Gaza city, January, 2006. Reuters

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  Ismail Haniyeh with a cleric as he attends the Friday prayer in Gaza city's Shati refugee camp, January 2006. AFP

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  Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh kisses a child at the end of the weekly Friday noon prayer in Gaza city's Al-Shati refugee camp, June 2006. AFP

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  Ismail Haniyeh greets supporters during a visit to the Ain el-Helweh camp, Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp, near Sidon, September 2020. AFP

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  Ismail Haniyeh is carried during his visit to Ain el Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon, Lebanon, September 2020. Reuters

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  Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and with Ismail Haniyeh during Mr Abbas' visit to attend Algeria's 60th independence anniversary in Algiers, July 2022. AFP

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  Iran's former president Ebrahim Raisi, right, with Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, June 2023. AFP

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  A man in front of the car in which three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were reportedly killed in an Israeli air strike, in April 2024. AFP

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  President Masoud Pezeshkian, right, with Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran, July 2024. AP

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Hamas's political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a strike on his residence in Tehran on Wednesday morning. The group has blamed Israel for the attack.

To many analysts, Mr Haniyeh's rise to prominence was the product of the decades-long struggle between Palestinian nationalists and militants and Israel.

He was also a figure viewed by many as defining a struggle of violent resistance to Israeli occupation, spending years in Israeli prisons and vowing to continue fighting after several Palestinian factions renounced armed struggle in the 1990s.

He lived in Gaza for much of his life and was five during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which led to the decades-long Israeli occupation of Gaza.

He was the political leader of Hamas on October 7, when its fighters surged into southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people. Israel's invasion and bombardment of Gaza has killed about 34,900 Palestinians.

He stepped into the political limelight in 2006, when Hamas won legislative elections that gave it power over the enclave. He had become Palestine's prime minister – a position he held for a year, in a short-lived coalition government.

Infighting between rival factions Fatah and Hamas led to the dissolution of the government, but Mr Haniyeh maintained leadership over Gaza from 2007 to 2014.

Three years later, he replaced Hamas's political bureau chief Khaled Meshaal. Mr Haniyeh's position was taken by Yahya Sinwar.

In 2018, the US added Mr Haniyeh to its Specially Designated Global Terrorists list for allegedly being involved in "terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens".

Who was Ismail Haniyeh?

He was born in 1962 in northern Gaza's Al Shati refugee camp, after his family sought refuge from Ashkelon. At the time, Gaza was controlled by Egypt after the first two Arab-Israeli wars.

Mr Haniyeh grew up attending schools run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. He later obtained a bachelor's degree in Arabic from the Islamic University in Gaza.

While a student, Mr Haniyeh got into politics, joining the Islamic Student Bloc, an organisation viewed as a forerunner to Hamas.

He graduated in 1987, the year of the first uprising against Israeli occupation that began in Gaza, and the year Hamas was founded.

Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin with Ismail Haniyeh at his home in Gaza Strip, in June 2002. Reuters

Ten years later, he was selected to run the group's political bureau.

Mr Haniyeh was jailed several times by Israel for his participation in movements against the country in 1988 and 1989. He remained in jail until he was deported to Lebanon in 1992 for a year.

After returning to Gaza a year later, when the Oslo Accords were signed between the Palestine Liberation Organisation and Israel in 1993, he was appointed dean of the Islamic University.

Assassination attempts

In 2003, two years after the second Intifada, Israel carried out a failed assassination attempt on Mr Haniyeh and Hamas co-founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in a Gaza apartment block where they were meeting.

In 2006, Mr Haniyeh's convoy was struck by gunfire in Gaza. He was not injured in the attack.

Also that year, Hamas accused Israel of sending Mr Haniyeh, prime minster at the time, a letter laced with poison. It was delivered to his Ramallah office. Seven people were taken to hospital.

This year, several of Mr Haniyeh's family members, including children and grandchildren, were killed in Israeli strikes on a convoy carrying in Gaza.

“The occupation thinks that they can break our willpower by targeting the commanders’ homes and pressuring them into squandering our people’s blood and their demands … this will only make us stronger and more resilient,” Mr Haniyeh said at the time.

“The blood of my family is not more valuable than the blood of other Palestinians. All the martyrs in Gaza are my children.”

Haniyeh's life in Qatar

Mr Haniyeh left Gaza in 2019, living in Turkey and Qatar, where he became more prominent as a political leader and spokesman for Hamas.

He became closer to Iranian and Syrian leadership, attending the funeral of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Suleimani in 2020, after he was killed in a US drone strike in Iraq.

Hamas had previously been one of several groups funded by Iran in the Middle East – including Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza – and Mr Haniyeh praised Tehran's support in the run-up to the 2014 Israel-Gaza war.

But until recently, the relationship had been turbulent, particularly after a rift during the Syrian civil war, where Hamas voiced opposition to Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

In 2021, Mr Haniyeh attended the inauguration of Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash this year, along with foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian meets Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 30. Reuters

In 2022, Mr Haniyeh met Mr Al Assad, despite their rift over the uprising in Syria.

At the time of his death, Mr Haniyeh was in Tehran, attending the inauguration of Iran's new President Masoud Pezeshkian.