Report provides new details Israel hired Iranian agents to kill Hamas leader

It is still a mystery how the political leader of Hamas could have been murdered in a well-protected guest house of the Iranian government. A newspaper report provides new details.

According to a media report, the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad is said to have hired Iranian security agents for the deadly attack on Hamas leader Ismail Haniya in Tehran.

As the British conservative daily newspaper "The Telegraph" reported, citing two Iranian officials, the Iranian agents had been instructed by Mossad to plant explosives in three different rooms of a building where Hanija was staying.

Planned killing as early as May

Haniya was the victim of an attack on Wednesday night. Hamas and Iran accuse Israel and threaten to retaliate. Israel has not yet officially responded to the accusations.

The original plan was to kill Haniya in May when he attended the funeral of former President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash. Due to the large crowd and the high probability of failure, the plan was called off.

Instead, the two agents hired by the Mossad planted explosive devices in three rooms of the guest house of the Revolutionary Guards, Iran's elite armed forces, in the north of Tehran. Surveillance camera footage shows the agents entering and leaving several rooms within a few minutes, the two officials told the newspaper.

Explosives stored in the guest house for two months

The agents are said to have subsequently left the country, but were in contact with a local source. At 2.00 a.m. on Wednesday, they then detonated the explosives from abroad by remote detonation in the room where Hanija was staying.

The foreign head of Hamas, which is allied with Iran, was killed in the explosion. He was in the Iranian capital for the swearing-in ceremony of the new Iranian President Massud Peseschkian. Hours before his death, he had been received by the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The US newspapers "New York Times" and "Wall Street Journal" had also reported, citing informants, that Hanija had been killed by a bomb.

The explosive device is said to have been placed in the guest house two months before Hanija's trip to Tehran, the New York Times reported, citing seven officials from the Middle East region, including two Iranians, and a US government official.