ISRAEL brazenly assassinated Hamas’ political leader next door to the presidential palace in Tehran using a bomb smuggled in months ago, it was claimed.
Ismail Haniyeh was blown up at around 2am as he slept in one of the of the most secure sites in the Iranian capital.
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The hit demonstrates secret service Shin Bet’s deadly reach and how none of their rivals are safe.
Haniyeh was staying in a building next door to the president’s Sa’dabad Palace as he attended the new leader’s inauguration.
Israeli agents killed Haniyeh with a bomb smuggled into the guesthouse two months ago, the New York Times reported.
The beige secure six-story structure has few windows and showed damage to it in a new photo circulating social media Wednesday.
Green netting covered the western corner of the upper floors, with one wall beneath it missing.
Satellite imagery from Monday showed the building without any netting.
Locals reported hearing a loud noise and explosion at around 2am local time on Wednesday.
Israel’s Shin Bet intelligence arm discovered exactly which room Haniyeh was sleeping – but didn’t kill the others also in the block.
They managed to track the boss after a tip-off from Haniyeh’s inner circle, an Iranian blog cited one government source as saying.
The presidential Sa’dabad Complex is a series of palaces built by Iranian monarchs in the centuries before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
One building hosts ceremonies for foreign leaders, including the high commands of the “axis of evil” Israel belongs to.
Dictators like China’s Xi Jinping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin, and Belarus’ Aleksandr Lukashenko have all visited one palace.
Haniyeh, who lives in Qatar, has been the tough-talking face of Hamas’ international diplomacy as the group has held on to Israeli hostages in tunnels below Gaza.
Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the swearing-in of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Tuesday.
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He was pictured pulling the peace sign with his fingers in the country’s parliament before chants of “Death to Israel” filled the chamber.
He also met Ayatollah Ali Khamenei just hours before Iran’s Supreme Leader led prayers at his funeral.
Khamenei cried as he stood beside the coffin of his ally as throngs of Iranians filled the streets of Tehran to pay their respects.
The funeral came just hours after Khamenei pledged to take revenge and issued an order for a “direct attack on Israel”.
He said: “Revenge is our duty and Israel has prepared a harsh punishment for itself by killing a dear guest in our home.”
Israel announced today the death of one-eyed Mohammed Deif, dubbed “The Guest”.
Deif was one of the terrorist architects behind the October 7 attacks that killed 1,200 people in Israel last year.
IDF fighter jets took out the terrorist mastermind in a “precise, targeted” strike on a compound in Gaza on July 13.
The army announced the strike at the time, but only revealed today that they were successful.
Fears of a regional war are now rising after tit-for-tat strikes as Iranian proxies pledged to retaliate.
Hezbollah, another Iran-backed ally in the “axis of resistance”, promised to stir up anti-Israel sentiment amongst its allies.
And the Houthis, based in Yemen, said it marks a “major escalation” in the Middle East.
It comes after Hezbollah terrorists blasted a football pitch in the Druze town of Majdal Shams in Israel’s occupied Golan Heights – killing 12 young people including children.
Tensions in the Middle East are already swirling after almost ten months of brutal and bloody war in the Gaza Strip.
Analysts previously told The Sun that Iran’s network of bloodthirsty proxy groups across the region are “primed and ready” to spark a second front in the ongoing conflict.
Israel has used a number of different assassination techniques to remove its enemies.
The country has used an AI-powered machine gun, ninja missiles, and poison syringes.
Who was Ismail Haniyeh?
By Ellie Doughty, Foreign News Reporter
Haniyeh, one of the founding members of the terror group, unflinchingly represented the bloodthirsty clan for decades, even past the death of his own children.
The 62-year-old was responsible for running Hamas’ political operations from Doha, Qatar’s capital.
Born in a refugee camp in northern Gaza, he lead the group through several wars with Israel and served as a fundamental power player for the cult.
Over the last ten months he had been responsible for conducting ceasefire talks, mediated by Qatar, Egypt and the US.
He survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2003, before the IDF took out his mentor – the founder of Hamas itself Sheik Ahmed Yassin – in 2004.
Standing outside a hospital in Gaza at the time, the man who would become one of Hamas’ principal leaders urged people not to cry but to focus on revenge instead.
By 2006 he was working as the leader of Hamas in Gaza, a position now held by Israel’s number one enemy – Yahya Sinwar.
He moved to Qatar in 2017 when he was named as the group’s new political leader.
The group was trying to change its image at the time as it made bids across the international stage for more influence.
Haniyeh represented the Iran-backed terror proxy in Qatar, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran and Egypt.
His ruthless approach to furthering the Hamas agenda would overrule even the assassination of his own children and grandchildren years later.
In April this year an Israeli airstrike killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren.
In June, Hamas claimed his sister and her family were also killed by an Israeli strike.
Haniyeh simply said at the time: “We shall not give in, no matter the sacrifices.”
He added that he had lost dozens of family members over years of war between Hamas and Israel.
The terror boss was given news of his children’s deaths while on a hospital visit. After hearing the news, he continued to tour the building as normal.
Haniyeh spent time inside Israeli prisons in the 1980s and 1990s.
By 1988 he was among the founding members of Hamas, working under Yassin.
His assassination serves as a fundamental blow to Hamas – with leaders dubbing it a “treacherous Zionist raid” on Wednesday morning.
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