Haniyeh’s Assassination: How Did Israel Infiltrate Iran’s Stronghold?

This photo shows the Hamas chief's residence in Tehran where he was assassinated. (Social media)
This photo shows the Hamas chief's residence in Tehran where he was assassinated. (Social media)
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Haniyeh’s Assassination: How Did Israel Infiltrate Iran’s Stronghold?

This photo shows the Hamas chief's residence in Tehran where he was assassinated. (Social media)
This photo shows the Hamas chief's residence in Tehran where he was assassinated. (Social media)

Israel revealed on Sunday new details about the assassination of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on July 31.

Days after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz admitted Israel's responsibility for Haniyeh's killing, Israel’s Channel 12 said the assassination was carried out with a “precision bomb” placed inside Haniyeh's room and controlled remotely.

The report contradicted Iranian and Hamas reports that claimed Haniyeh was killed by a “short-range projectile.”

It said Israeli agents placed an improvised explosive device in Haniyeh’s room near his bed before the inauguration of new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on July 31.

The channel said a broken air conditioning unit nearly scuttled Israel’s assassination of Haniyeh, who appeared on the verge of changing rooms before staff at the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ guesthouse in Tehran managed to fix the cooling system.

The Israeli decision to take out Haniyeh came shortly after Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack, when the movement's leader was placed somewhere at the top of a list compiled by senior intelligence officials. It was only a matter of when, Channel 12 said.

Tamir Heyman, former head of the Military Intelligence Directorate, told the channel that for several years Haniyeh had been a well-known figure to the Israeli public, but was not considered a prime target. “The main targets of Israel were military figures, such as Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif,” he said.

But the dramatic shift that turned Haniyeh into a target were events that followed the October 7 attack.

In late January, Israel uncovered documents seized in a tunnel used by Sinwar, proving the deep military coordination between the two men.

Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman said Haniyeh played, in general, a key role in the Hamas military operations, and in particular, in the preparation for the October 7 attack.

How did Israel infiltrate the Iranian stronghold?

The report said the options for where to kill Haniyeh were Qatar, Türkiye, Russia and Iran — the four countries frequented by the Hamas leader.

It explained that Haniyeh could not be assassinated in Qatar as this would have harmed the hostage mediation efforts.

Israel also feared a furious reaction from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and similarly did not want to anger Russian President Vladimir Putin, leaving Iran as the most suitable option, the channel said.

The fact that Haniyeh stayed repeatedly in the same IRGC guesthouse in the luxurious northern Tehran neighborhood of Saadat Abad made the operation easier to plan.

However, he was guarded as a guest of honor by the IRGC’s top personal security team, requiring a deep level of infiltration in order to pull off the assassination.

Channel 12 said the Haniyeh assassination was at an even higher level than the pager operation that targeted Hezbollah members in Lebanon in September.

“We penetrated the inside and outside of the most guarded Iranian facility,” Iran expert Beni Sabti of the Institute for National Security Studies told the channel.

It reported that planning the operation took months, with unnamed sources describing the mission as “one of the most complex and sensitive operations.”

Israeli agents installed an improvised explosive device in Haniyeh’s room near his bed. The IED was slightly larger than Israel had planned.

Shortly before the planned detonation, the AC unit in Haniyeh’s room broke down, and the Hamas leader left his room to request assistance.

Citing a source familiar with its planning, Channel 12 said the Hamas leader was gone for so long that Israel feared that he was being moved to a different room, which would have scuttled the entire operation.

After some time, though, the AC unit was fixed and Haniyeh returned to his room.

At 1:30 am, there was a huge explosion in the compound.

“After about a minute, the medical team declares him dead, and then [now-Hamas leader] Khalil al-Hayya enters and sees his colleague lying dead and bleeding on the ground, and he himself falls to his knees and bursts into tears,” said Bergman. “It's a dramatic moment.”

Who assisted the Mossad?

The precision and success of the operation reportedly sowed panic in the Iranian leadership, and to this day, and the question of who assisted the Mossad in the operation remains.

According to both Bergman and Heyman, the operation was complex and therefore, could not have been carried out without significant help from within Iran or Hamas.

“This requires a whole network of execution capabilities,” emphasized Heyman. “It probably involves some people who betrayed their country or betrayed their mission and cooperated to allow this to happen.”

On Sunday, Hamas in a statement denied Israeli reports about the assassination of the former head of its political bureau.

It said joint investigation between the movement’s security apparatus and Iran’s security apparatuses showed that Haniyeh was killed by a guided missile weighing 7.5 kg that directly targeted his mobile phone.

“The claims made by the occupation regime are merely a desperate attempt to divert public opinion from this crime, which clearly violates Iran’s sovereignty,” Hamas said.



Hamas Says Ready to Free All Hostages at Once in Gaza Truce Phase Two

The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Hamas Says Ready to Free All Hostages at Once in Gaza Truce Phase Two

The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
The sun sets behind heavily damaged residential buildings in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on February 17, 2025, as people return to northern parts of Gaza during a current ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Hamas signaled on Wednesday that it was willing to free all remaining hostages held in Gaza in a single swap during the next phase of an ongoing ceasefire.  

Israel and Hamas are currently in the process of implementing phase one of the fragile truce, which has held since taking effect on January 19 despite accusations of violations on both sides.  

Israel's foreign minister said on Tuesday that talks would begin "this week" on the second phase, which is expected to lay out a more permanent end to the war.

"We have informed the mediators that Hamas is ready to release all hostages in one batch during the second phase of the agreement, rather than in stages as in the current first phase," senior Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP.

He did not clarify how many hostages were currently being held by Hamas or other armed groups.  

Nunu said this step was meant "to confirm our seriousness and complete readiness to move forward in resolving this issue, as well as to continue steps towards cementing the ceasefire and achieving a sustainable truce".  

Under the ceasefire's first phase, 19 Israeli hostages have been released so far in exchange for more than 1,100 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israeli jails in a series of Red Cross-mediated swaps.  

Wednesday's offer came after Israel and Hamas announced a deal for the return of all six remaining living hostages eligible for release under phase one in a single swap this weekend.  

Hamas also agreed on Tuesday to return the bodies of eight dead hostages in two groups this week and next.  

After the completion of the first phase, 58 hostages will remain in Gaza.  

The armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad said on Wednesday that it would release the body of Israeli hostage Oded Lifshitz on Thursday. The group said Lifshitz was one of the hostages killed during Israeli strikes on Gaza.  

- 'Room to pressure Hamas' -  

Muhammad Shehada, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that after more than a year of devastating Israeli assault in Gaza, "Hamas wants to prevent the war resuming at any cost", albeit with some "red lines".  

"And one of those red lines is that they should continue to exist, basically, whereas (Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin) Netanyahu's position is that they should dismantle themselves," he said.  

Since the start of the war, Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas's capacity to fight or govern, something the group has rejected.  

But the appearance that Washington is now in complete alignment with Netanyahu's government, as displayed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit this week, strengthened the Israeli premier's hand in negotiations, according to Michael Horowitz, an expert at the risk management consultancy Le Beck International.  

It gives Netanyahu "more room to pressure Hamas", Horowitz said, adding that US President Donald Trump "prefers that the agreement moves forward, but he's leaving the field open to Netanyahu... as long as the ceasefire is maintained".  

- 'Held onto hope' -

Among the bodies Hamas said it would hand over on Thursday are those of Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, Kfir and Ariel, who have become national symbols in Israel of the hostages' ordeal.  

The boys' father Yarden Bibas was taken hostage separately on October 7, 2023, and was released alive during an earlier hostage-prisoner swap.  

While Hamas said Shiri Bibas and her boys were killed in an Israeli air strike early in the war, Israel has never confirmed this, and many supporters remain unconvinced of their deaths, including members of the Bibas family.  

"I ask that no one eulogize my family just yet. We have held onto hope for 16 months, and we are not giving up now," the boys' aunt, Ofri Bibas, wrote on Facebook late Tuesday following Hamas's announcement.  

Israeli authorities have confirmed that the remains of four hostages are due to be returned on Thursday, although they have not officially named them.  

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has acted as go-between in the exchanges, called for a respectful handover of the hostages' remains.  

"We once again call for all releases to be conducted in a private and dignified manner, including when they tragically involve the deceased," it said.  

Hamas and its allies took 251 people hostage during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, of whom 70 remain in Gaza, including 35 the Israeli military says are dead.  

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,211 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.  

Israel's retaliatory campaign has killed at least 48,297 people in Gaza, the majority of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory that the United Nations considers reliable.  

Since the war began, Israeli forces have detained hundreds of Gazans, some of whom have been released in previous rounds of hostage-prisoner exchanges.