Hamas begins consultations to choose Ismail Haniyeh’s successor

Movement that runs the Gaza Strip says its senior officials have started broad consultations ‘to choose a new chief’.

Hamas says it has initiated consultations to select a new leader of the Palestinian group after the assassination of its political chief Ismail Haniyeh.

“Following the martyrdom of our leader, the leaders of the movement have started a broad consultation process within its hierarchy and advisory institutions to choose a new chief,” Hamas said in a statement published on its social media accounts on Sunday.

The statement said Haniyeh’s killing “would only make the Hamas and the Palestinian resistance stronger and more determined to continue his path and approach”.

The group said the results of consultations will be announced as soon as they are completed.

Haniyeh was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran, early on Wednesday in an attack the Iranian officials blame on Israel. His bodyguard was also killed.

Iran and groups aligned with it in the Middle East have promised to avenge Haniyeh’s killing. Israel – accused by Hamas, Iran and others of carrying out the attack – has not directly commented on the killing.

Haniyeh was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

After a funeral in Tehran, where prayers were led by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on Thursday, Haniyeh’s remains were flown to Doha for burial.

The Hamas leader was based in the Qatari capital, where negotiations with Israel and other stakeholders, including Egypt and the United States, over a possible ceasefire in Gaza have been held on and off since the war started in October.

Regional escalation fears

As Iran and its allies prepare their response to Haniyeh’s assassination, tensions are soaring in the Middle East over fears of a regional war.

Israel’s main ally, the US, said it would move more warships and fighter jets to the region while several Western governments, including the US and the United Kingdom, have called on their citizens to immediately leave Lebanon, where Hamas’s ally, Hezbollah, is based.

Haniyeh’s killing in Tehran had come only hours after the Israeli assassination of Hezbollah’s military chief in Beirut, triggering promises of revenge from Iran and the “axis of resistance”, which are armed groups in the Middle East supported by Iran.

Iran on Saturday said it expects Hezbollah to hit deeper inside Israel and no longer be confined to military targets.

When US President Joe Biden was asked by reporters on Saturday if he thought Iran would stand down after the Tehran attack, he said: “I hope so. I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, Israel’s army early on Sunday said about 30 rockets were launched from southern Lebanon into Israel, adding that most of them were shot down and no injuries were reported.

The barrage of rockets was fired after Israeli air strikes targeted several areas in southern Lebanon overnight, Lebanese media reported.

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since the day after the Gaza war began on October 7. It has killed nearly 40,000 Palestinians so far and displaced almost the entire population of the besieged enclave amid widespread starvation and health emergencies.