The Gaza Strip and Hamas marked Thursday the first anniversary of the killing of its former political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
The Palestinian resistance group called his assassination by Israel in Tehran a “treacherous and cowardly” act that has only strengthened Palestinian resolve against occupation.
Haniyeh was killed on July 31, 2024, when Israeli forces struck the building he was staying at in the Iranian capital, according to the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). The attack also killed one of his bodyguards. Israel later acknowledged responsibility. Haniyeh had been in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
In a statement, Hamas said the killing highlighted the central role resistance leaders play in the Palestinian struggle, noting that Haniyeh had already lost several of his children and grandchildren to the conflict, according to Iran-based media, PressTV.
“Time has proven that the policy of assassinating Hamas leaders only reinforced commitment to national rights and principles,” the group said, adding that such attacks intensified Palestinians’ determination “until the occupiers are expelled from Palestinian land and its sacred sites.”
The group reaffirmed Haniyeh’s call to designate Aug. 3 as a national and international day of support for Palestine. “It is a matter of loyalty to the martyr leader Ismail Haniyeh that we continue to affirm his call ... to make the Aug. 3 of each year a global national day to support Gaza, al-Quds (Jerusalem), al-Aqsa Mosque, and the prisoners,” Hamas said. The statement pledged to continue resistance “until the war of extermination and starvation against our people in the Gaza Strip stops.”
Haniyeh’s assassination came amid Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, following a Hamas incursion of southern Israel.
Since then, Israel’s genocide has killed over 60,200 Palestinians, most of them women and children, and injured 146,269 others, according to Gazan health officials.
