Attack in Iran The Hamas leader is dead - is there now a big war?

One of the most important Hamas leaders is said to have been killed in the Iranian capital. The Islamists hold Israel responsible. What is known so far.

The Islamist terrorist organization Hamas has confirmed: Its foreign head Ismail Hanija has been killed in an attack in the Iranian capital Tehran. He died as a result of an attack on his residence, Hamas announced.

Everything that is known so far in the big picture.

The foreign head of the Islamist Hamas, Ismail Haniya, has been killed in an Israeli attack in Tehran, according to the terrorist organization. He was killed as a result of an attack on his residence, Hamas announced.

Hanija is the highest-ranking Hamas leader to have been killed since the beginning of the Gaza war around ten months ago.

According to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Iran's elite military force, one of Hanija's bodyguards was also killed. Haniya had taken part in the swearing-in ceremony of the new Iranian President Massud Peseshkian before his death, Hamas announced.

Haniya was officially the foreign head of Hamas. Unofficially, however, he was considered the leading head of the terrorist organization.

He was born in 1963 in a refugee camp in Gaza. In 2006, he was briefly appointed Palestinian Prime Minister. Originally considered a moderate member, he has become increasingly radical in recent years.

In 2017, he was appointed head of Hamas abroad. In 2018, the USA put him on the terror list.

Hanija hardly spent any time in the Gaza Strip in recent years. Instead, he led the terrorist organization from abroad, spending most of his time in Turkey and Qatar.

The news of Haniya's killing came just a few hours after an Israeli airstrike on a suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut. According to the Israeli army, Fuad Shukr, a senior commander of the Shiite militia Hezbollah, was killed. Hezbollah is allied with Hamas in Gaza, both of which are in turn allies of Iran.

Since the terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas and other groups on October 7, Hezbollah has been attacking targets in northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas. It does not want to stop its attacks until a ceasefire is reached in Gaza.

Turkey has strongly condemned the killing of Haniya and held the Israeli government responsible. The attack shows that the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu "has no intention of achieving peace", the Turkish Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

Rather, the killing of the foreign head of Hamas was aimed at escalating the Gaza conflict so that it takes on a regional dimension. Major conflicts could flare up in the region if the international community does not intervene to stop Israel's actions, the statement from Ankara continued.

Turkey is a vocal critic of Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip, which followed the terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7. The government in Ankara frequently expresses support for Hamas, and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly received Hanija in Turkey.

That is still unclear. It was only at the beginning of January that the second highest-ranking Hamas leader abroad, Saleh al-Aruri, was killed in an explosion in Beirut. Hezbollah had blamed Israel for the death of the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau. Several Hezbollah commanders were also targeted and killed.

Whether Hezbollah and Hamas will now launch a major counter-attack and possibly launch a coordinated attack on Israel is still completely unclear at the moment.