GAZA: On May 6, 2017, Hamas that rules Gaza Strip, elected Ismail Abdulsalam Ahmed Haniya, as the head of the group’s political bureau, replacing Khaled Meshaal.
Ismail Haniya was born in the Shati refugee camp in the Gaza Strip to parents who fled from the city of Asqalan following Israel was created in 1948, Ismail Haniya studied at the al-Azhar Institute in Gaza. He graduated with a degree in Arabic literature from the Islamic University in Gaza. While at university in 1983, he joined the Islamic Student alliance, a precursor to Hamas.
Ismail Haniyeh climbed the ranks within Hamas as a close aide to Hamas’ cofounder, the late Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, in 1997. Earlier this year an Israeli strike killed three of his sons in northern Gaza.
Iranian media and Hamas said that Ismail Abdulsalam Ahmed Haniya has been assassinated in an attack in the Iranian capital, Tehran. According to Press TV, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said this morning that Ismail Haniyeh and one of his bodyguards were killed when their house was attacked in Tehran.
Iranian media reported that the attack is under probe and the results will be announced later. Ismail Haniyeh was in Tehran to take part the inauguration ceremony of the Iranian president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian.
Hamas also confirmed that Ismail Haniyeh has been martyred in Tehran today. The Islamist faction mourned the death of Ismail Haniyeh, who it said was martyred in “a treacherous Zionist attack on his residence in Tehran. The statement said, ” Leader, Brother, mujahid Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the movement, passed away in a Zionist attack on his headquarters in Tehran following he participated in the inauguration of the new president of Iran”.
