Ismail Haniyeh: Hamas’ international face, marked for death by Israel over Oct. 7 attack

BEIRUT (AP) — Ismail Haniyeh was the worldwide face of Hamas, its prime chief in exile who saved up the militant group’s ties with allies across the area. On the head of its political hierarchy, he had little army position – however Israel marked him for loss of life after the shock Oct. 7 assaults.

The 62-year-old Haniyeh was killed in an airstrike Wednesday throughout a go to to considered one of Hamas’ most important allies, Iran, after attending the inauguration of its new president. Iran and Hamas each accused Israel, which has not commented on the strike.

The assassination would make him the highest-level Hamas official killed by Israel because the Hamas-led Oct. 7 assaults, when militants killed 1,200 individuals and took about 250 hostages. The Israel-Hamas battle that adopted has change into the deadliest and longest within the Arab-Israeli battle. Greater than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed, in response to well being officers in Gaza.

Haniyeh, the top of Hamas’s political bureau, had been in self-imposed exile from Gaza since 2019 and was usually seen as a relative reasonable within the group. He was one of many few Hamas leaders who mentioned the group, whereas it rejects recognizing Israel, doesn’t oppose a two-state resolution. Based mostly in Qatar and infrequently transferring across the area, he didn’t have a direct hand within the group’s army wing, referred to as the Qassam Brigades, however usually coordinated between it and political branches.

It’s not identified what he knew in regards to the army wing’s plan to interrupt out of tightly closed Gaza and assault surrounding communities in southern Israel. The plan was masterminded inside Gaza, doubtless by Hamas’ chief on the bottom Yahya Sinwar and the top of the army wing Mohammed Deif. A Hamas official instructed the AP solely a handful of its commanders on the bottom knew in regards to the “zero hour.”

However after the carnage caught Israeli army and intelligence unexpectedly, Haniyeh embraced the assault, praising it as a humiliating blow to Israel’s aura of invincibility. Inside hours, he appeared in a video main prayers with different Hamas officers thanking God for the assault’s success.

“The Al-Aqsa flood was an earthquake that struck the guts of the Zionist entity and has made main modifications on the world degree,” Haniyeh mentioned in a speech in Iran in the course of the funeral of late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Might. “Al-Aqsa flood” was Hamas’ code title for the Oct. 7 assault.

“We’ll proceed the resistance in opposition to this enemy till we liberate our land, all our land,” Haniyeh mentioned.

Michael Milshtein, a Hamas knowledgeable at Tel Aviv College, mentioned Haniyeh had a commanding position within the group’s international coverage and diplomacy, however was much less concerned in army affairs.

“He was chargeable for propaganda, for diplomatic relations, however he was not very highly effective,” mentioned Milshtein, a former army intelligence officer. “Every now and then, Sinwar even laughed and joked: ‘He’s the extra reasonable, subtle chief, however he doesn’t perceive something about warfare.’”

Nonetheless, Israel pledged to kill all of Hamas’ leaders after the assaults, and Haniyeh was excessive on its record.

Haniyeh was additionally underneath the attention of the Worldwide Legal Court docket, whose chief prosecutor sought arrest warrants in opposition to him, Sinwar and Deif for battle crimes and crimes in opposition to humanity. Related requests have been issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Protection Minister Yoav Gallant. Since 2018, the U.S. had designated Haniyeh as a terrorist, saying he was carefully linked to Hamas’ army wing.

The threats didn’t stop Haniyeh from touring. He visited Turkey and Iran all through the battle. From Doha, he participated within the negotiations meant to deliver a few cease-fire and free the hostages.

Israel’s retaliation value him his closest family members. Strikes in April and final month killed three of his sons, 4 of his grandchildren and considered one of his sisters. Haniyeh mentioned Israel was performing in “the spirit of revenge and homicide.”

Haniyeh was born in Gaza’s city Shati refugee camp to folks who have been pressured out of the city of Majdal – now the town of Ashkelon in Israel – in the course of the 1948 battle surrounding Israel’s creation. 5 years after his start, Israel captured Gaza within the 1967 battle, and he grew up underneath its occupation of the strip.

He joined Hamas when it was based in 1987 because the “Intifada,” or first main mass Palestinian rebellion in opposition to Israel’s rule, erupted. He served as an aide to Ahmad Yassin, the group’s founder, because the group broke from different teams and commenced conducting armed assaults on Israeli troops within the occupied territories.

Haniyeh was detained by Israeli troops in 1989 for Hamas membership and spent three years in jail. In 1992, he was deported to Lebanon with a gaggle of prime Hamas officers and founders. He later returned to the Gaza Strip following the 1993 interim peace accords, which have been signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Group.

That 12 months, Hamas turned to a marketing campaign of suicide bombings in opposition to civilians in Israel aimed toward thwarting the accords — which now have been stagnant for years.

After Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, Hamas gained Palestinian legislative elections within the following 12 months, and Haniyeh was named prime minister within the Palestinian authorities. Deeply non secular and versed in Arabic literature from his college research, he was identified for his flowery rhetoric in his speeches.

However frictions between Hamas and Fatah, the primary faction behind the Palestinian Authority, rapidly erupted into combating. Hamas drove the PA out of Gaza and seized energy there in 2007 inflicting a break up that has endured since.

Whereas the PA dominated in enclaves of the Israeli-occupied West Financial institution, Haniyeh turned prime minister in Gaza. That made him the lead man in Hamas’s first effort at governing, because it clamped down management. Situations and poverty worsened underneath an Israel-Egyptian blockade.

Finally, he was named Hamas’ prime political chief, changing Khaled Mashaal in 2017, and shortly after went into exile.

Hani Masri, a veteran Palestinian analyst who met Haniyeh a number of instances, mentioned Haniyeh’s persona was a pure match for his political position in Doha. He described him as sociable and well-spoken.

Nonetheless, some Palestinians in Gaza resented Haniyeh’s distance from their woes contained in the beleaguered territory. Israel usually seized on that, portraying him and different Hamas leaders as residing in luxurious in Doha accommodations whereas Palestinians endure.

Iranian media on Wednesday quoted a previous speech by Haniyeh through which he mentioned the Palestinian trigger has “prices.”

“We’re prepared for these prices: martyrdom for the sake of Palestine, and for the sake of God Almighty, and for the sake of the dignity of this nation.”

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Related Press writers Jack Jeffery in Ramallah, West Financial institution and Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.

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This text corrects Haniyeh’s age when he died. He was 62.