Haniyeh, mystery surrounding his death. “Iranian agents recruited”, widespread arrests in Tehran –

Disagreements over the manner of the death of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. According to the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, the Mossad hired Iranian agents to plant explosives in three different rooms of the residence where he usually stayed in Tehran. The devices that killed the Palestinian leader on Wednesday were detonated remotely from abroad: Iranian agents planted explosives in three rooms of the residence and then left the Islamic Republic. The Mossad’s initial plan was to kill Haniyeh in May, during his visit to Tehran to attend the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi. However, the operation was canceled due to the large number of people in the building and the high possibility of failure, two Iranian officials said. The opportunity arose again with the inauguration of the new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian. “Now they are sure that the Mossad has hired agents in the Ansar al-Mahdi security unit,” the unit charged with protecting senior officials, a IRGC official said. “It is a humiliation for Iran and a huge security breach,” another IRGC official added. “It is still a question for everyone how this happened, I can’t understand it. There must be something higher up in the hierarchy that no one knows about.”

A Hamas official in Iran has denied reports that the fatal explosion was caused by a bomb in his room. Khaled Qaddoumi, quoted by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, said that “from the appearance of the place after the attack and what happened there, and from the body of the martyred leader Ismail Haniyeh, it is clear that the target was hit by an aerial projectile, be it a missile or a grenade.” Qaddoumi, who the United States has described as a link between Hamas and the Iranian government, recalled the moments of the attack: “At exactly 1:37, the building shook, so I came out of the place where I was and saw thick smoke. After that, we understood that Haniyeh was martyred.” “There was a flash,” was the rest of the story.

Meanwhile, Iranian security forces have arrested over twenty people for alleged links to Haniyeh’s assassination. The New York Times revealed this, citing two Iranian sources familiar with the investigation: those arrested include senior Iranian intelligence officials, military officers and staff members of the guesthouse where the Palestinian leader was killed, run by the military body IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Evidently, the Daily Telegraph’s backstory, denied by Hamas, has more than a few basis in truth.