Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed Wednesday by an explosive device smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle East officials, including two Iranians, and one U.S. official.
The bomb had been hidden there about two months ago, according to five of the officials. The guesthouse is run and protected by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and is part of a large complex, known as Neshat, in an upmarket neighborhood in northern Tehran.
Haniyeh was in the Iranian capital to attend the presidential inauguration. The bomb was detonated remotely, according to the five officials, after it was confirmed that Haniyeh was in his room at home. The explosion also killed a bodyguard.
The bomb detonation shook the building, shattered some windows and caused an exterior wall to partially collapse, according to the two Iranian officials, members of the Revolutionary Guard briefed on the incident. This damage was also evident in a photograph of the building shared with The New York Times.
Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’s political arm in Qatar, had stayed at the guesthouse several times during his visits to Tehran, according to the Middle East officials. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity to share sensitive details about the killing.
Iranian and Hamas officials said Wednesday that Israel was responsible for the killing, an assessment echoed by several U.S. officials who requested anonymity. The killing threatened to unleash another wave of violence in the Middle East and jeopardize ongoing negotiations to end the war in Gaza. Haniyeh had been a lead negotiator of the cease-fire.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the attack, but Israeli intelligence officials briefed the United States and other Western governments on details of the operation immediately afterward, according to the five Middle Eastern officials.
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said the United States had no advance knowledge of the assassination plot.
In the hours after the assassination, speculation quickly turned to the possibility that Israel had killed Haniyeh via a missile strike, possibly launched from a drone or aircraft, similar to how Israel launched a missile at a military base in Isfahan in April.
That missile theory raised questions about how Israel could have, again, evaded Iranian air defense systems to carry out such a blatant airstrike on the capital.
Rather, the leader’s killers exploited a different kind of breach in Iran’s defenses: a security lapse at a supposedly heavily guarded compound that allowed a bomb to be planted and kept hidden for several weeks before it was detonated.
According to three Iranian officials, the breach was a catastrophic failure by Iran’s intelligence and security services and a major humiliation for the Guard, which uses the compound for retreats, secret meetings and hosting high-profile guests like Haniyeh.
It is unclear how the bomb was hidden in the guesthouse. Middle Eastern officials said planning for the killing took months and required extensive surveillance of the compound. The two Iranian officials who described the nature of the killing said they did not know how or when the explosives were placed in the room.
Israel decided to carry out the assassination outside Qatar, where Haniyeh and other senior Hamas political leaders live. The Qatari government has been mediating negotiations between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The deadly blast early Wednesday shattered windows and collapsed part of the compound’s wall, Iranian officials said in photographs. Damage beyond the building appeared to be minimal, as would likely have been caused by a missile.
At around 2 a.m. local time, the device exploded, according to Middle Eastern officials, including Iranians. Frightened members of the building’s staff ran to find the source of the earth-shaking noise, which led them to the room where Haniyeh was staying with a bodyguard.
A medical team was present at the facility and immediately rushed to the room after the explosion. The team declared that Haniyeh had died instantly. The team tried to resuscitate the bodyguard, but he had also died.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah was staying in the room next door, two of the Iranian officials said. His room was not seriously damaged, suggesting precise planning for the attack on Haniyeh.
Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’ deputy commander in the Gaza Strip who was also in Tehran, arrived at the scene and saw his colleague’s body, according to the five Middle Eastern officials.
Among those immediately notified, according to the three Iranian officials, was Gen. Ismail Ghaani, commander in chief of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Revolutionary Guard, which works closely with Iranian allies in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah. In the middle of the night, he notified Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom he woke up, according to the officials.
Four hours after the blast, the Revolutionary Guard issued a statement announcing Haniyeh’s death. At 7:00 a.m., Khamenei had summoned members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to an emergency meeting, where he gave the order to strike Israel in retaliation, according to the three Iranian officials.
The inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, had already heightened security in Tehran, where senior government officials, military commanders and dignitaries from 86 countries gathered at the Islamic Consultative Assembly in central Tehran for the ceremony.
Haniyeh had appeared joyous and triumphant during the inauguration on Tuesday, hugging the new president after the president delivered his inaugural address, and the two men raised their hands together in a victory sign.
In Iran, the method of murder was the subject of rumors and disputes. Tasnim News Agencythe Guard’s media outlet, reported that witnesses said a missile-like object had struck Haniyeh’s bedroom window and exploded.
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But the two Iranian officials, the Guard members who were briefed on the attack, confirmed that the blast had occurred inside Haniyeh’s room, and said an initial investigation showed the explosives had been placed there in advance.
They described the precision and sophistication of the attack as similar in tactics to the remote-controlled artificial intelligence robotic weapon Israel used to assassinate top Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.
Israeli assassination operations outside the country are carried out primarily by the Mossad, the country’s foreign intelligence service. David Barnea, head of the Mossad, said in January that his service was “obligated” to pursue the leaders of Hamas, the group behind the October 7 attacks in Israel.
“It will take time, like after the Munich massacre, but our hands will catch them wherever they are,” Barnea said, referring to the killing of Israeli athletes by terrorists at the 1972 Olympics.
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