Haniyeh Killed in Bomb ‘Smuggled 2 Months Ago’ into Tehran Guesthouse

An aerial view of the guesthouse where Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's political bureau, was assassinated on Wednesday in northern Tehran (The New York Times)
An aerial view of the guesthouse where Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's political bureau, was assassinated on Wednesday in northern Tehran (The New York Times)
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Haniyeh Killed in Bomb ‘Smuggled 2 Months Ago’ into Tehran Guesthouse

An aerial view of the guesthouse where Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's political bureau, was assassinated on Wednesday in northern Tehran (The New York Times)
An aerial view of the guesthouse where Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's political bureau, was assassinated on Wednesday in northern Tehran (The New York Times)

Ismail Haniyeh, head of Hamas's political bureau, was assassinated on Wednesday by an explosive device covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying, according to seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official, The New York Times revealed.
The bomb had been hidden approximately two months ago in the guesthouse, according to five of the Middle Eastern officials.
The guesthouse is run and protected by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps and is part of a large compound, known as Neshat, in an upscale neighborhood of northern Tehran.
The bomb was detonated remotely, the five officials told the newspaper, once it was confirmed that he was inside his room at the guesthouse.
The explosion shook the building, shattered some windows and caused the partial collapse of an exterior wall, according to the two Iranian officials, members of the Revolutionary Guards briefed on the incident. Such damage was also evident in a photograph of the building shared with The New York Times.
Haniyeh, who had led Hamas’s political office in Qatar, had stayed at the guesthouse several times when visiting Tehran, according to the Middle Eastern officials.
Israel has not publicly acknowledged responsibility for the killing, but Israeli intelligence officials briefed the United States and other Western governments on the details of the operation in the immediate aftermath, according to the officials.
In the hours after the killing, speculation immediately focused on the possibility that Israel had killed Haniyeh with a missile strike, possibly fired from a drone or a plane, similar to how Israel had launched a missile on a military base in Isfahan in April.
That missile theory raised questions about how Israel might have been able to evade Iranian air defense systems again to execute such a brazen airstrike in the capital.
As it turns out, the assassins were able to exploit a different kind of gap in Iran’s defenses: a lapse in the security of a supposedly tightly guarded compound that allowed a bomb to be planted and to remain hidden for many weeks before it would eventually be triggered.
Such a breach, three Iranian officials said, was a catastrophic failure of intelligence and security for Iran and a tremendous embarrassment for the Guards, which uses the compound for retreats, secret meetings and housing prominent guests like Haniyeh.
How the bomb was stashed in the guesthouse remained unclear. The Middle Eastern officials said that the planning for the assassination took months and required extensive surveillance of the compound. The two Iranian officials who described the nature of the assassination said they did not know how or when the explosives were planted in the room.
The deadly blast early Wednesday shattered windows and collapsed a portion of the wall of the compound, photographs showed and the Iranian officials said. It appeared to do minimal damage beyond the building itself, as a missile probably would have done.
At around 2 a.m. local time, the device exploded, according to the Middle Eastern officials, including the Iranians. Startled building staff members, the officials said, ran to find the source of the tremendous noise, leading them to the room where Haniyeh was staying with a bodyguard.
The compound is staffed with a medical team which rushed to the room immediately after the explosion. The team declared that Haniyeh had died immediately. The team tried to revive the bodyguard, but he, too, was dead.
The leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad al-Nakhalah, was staying next door, two of the Iranian officials said. His room was not badly damaged, suggesting precise planning in the targeting of Haniyeh.
Khalil al-Hayya, the deputy commander of Hamas in the Gaza Strip who was also in Tehran, arrived at the scene and saw his colleague’s body, according to the five Middle Eastern officials.
Among the people immediately notified, said the three Iranian officials, was Gen. Ismail Ghaani, the commander in chief of the Quds Force, the overseas arm of the Revolutionary Guards, which works closely with Iranian allies in the region, including Hamas and Hezbollah. He notified Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in the middle of the night, waking him up, the officials said.
Four hours after the blast, the Revolutionary Guards issued a statement that Haniyeh had been killed. By 7 a.m., Khamenei had summoned the members of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council to his compound for an emergency meeting, at which he issued an order to strike Israel in retaliation, according to the three Iranian officials.
In Iran, the method of assassination was the subject of rumor and dispute. The Tasnim News Agency, the media outlet for the Guards, reported that witnesses said an object like a missile had hit the window of Haniyeh’s room and exploded.
But the two Iranian officials, the members of the Guards briefed on the attack, confirmed that the explosion had taken place inside Haniyeh’s room, and said that an initial investigation showed that the explosives had been placed there sometime in advance.
They described the attack’s precision and sophistication as similar in tactic to the remote controlled A.I. weapon that Israel used to assassinate Iran’s top nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh in 2020.

 



Trump Says US Has Given Ukraine Too Many Weapons in First Public Comments on Pause in Shipments

A truck with mounted anti-aircraft cannon, of the of 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fires towards Russian drones and missiles during an overnight shift, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine July 2, 2025. (Anatolii Lysianskyi/Press Service of the 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
A truck with mounted anti-aircraft cannon, of the of 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fires towards Russian drones and missiles during an overnight shift, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine July 2, 2025. (Anatolii Lysianskyi/Press Service of the 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
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Trump Says US Has Given Ukraine Too Many Weapons in First Public Comments on Pause in Shipments

A truck with mounted anti-aircraft cannon, of the of 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fires towards Russian drones and missiles during an overnight shift, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine July 2, 2025. (Anatolii Lysianskyi/Press Service of the 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)
A truck with mounted anti-aircraft cannon, of the of 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, fires towards Russian drones and missiles during an overnight shift, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine July 2, 2025. (Anatolii Lysianskyi/Press Service of the 127th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces/Handout via Reuters)

President Donald Trump complained Thursday that the United States provided too many weapons to Ukraine under the previous administration, his first public comments on the pause in some shipments as Russia escalates its latest offensive.

Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One for a flight to Iowa, Trump said former President Joe Biden "emptied out our whole country giving them weapons, and we have to make sure that we have enough for ourselves."

Air defense missiles, precision-guided artillery and other weapons are among those being withheld from Ukraine. The country suffered a new barrage overnight, with warnings of ballistic missiles followed by explosions in Kyiv. The sound of machine gun fire and drone engines could be heard across the capital.

Trump, who also spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, suggested he wasn't completely cutting off American assistance to Ukraine.

"We've given so many weapons," he said, adding that "we are working with them and trying to help them."

Trump said he had a "pretty long call" with Putin that "didn't make any progress" in resolving the war, which the Republican president had promised to swiftly bring to a conclusion.

"I’m not happy about that," he said.

The Kremlin described the conversation as "frank and constructive" — the sixth publicly disclosed chat between the two leaders since Trump returned to the White House.

While discussing the situation around Iran and in the broader Middle East, Putin emphasized the need to resolve all differences "exclusively by political and diplomatic means," said Yuri Ushakov, his foreign affairs adviser.

The leaders agreed that Russian and US officials will maintain contact on the issue, he added.

The United States struck three sites in Iran on June 22, inserting itself into Israel’s war aimed at destroying Tehran's nuclear program.

On the conflict in Ukraine, Ushakov said Trump emphasized his push for a quick halt to the fighting, and Putin voiced Moscow’s readiness to pursue talks with Kyiv, noting the previous rounds in Türkiye yielded humanitarian results.

At the same time, the Russian leader emphasized that Moscow will seek to achieve its goals in Ukraine and remove the "root causes" of the conflict, Ushakov said.

"Russia will not back down from these goals," Ushakov told reporters after the call.

Putin has argued he sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022 to fend off a threat to Russia posed by Ukraine's push to join NATO and to protect Russian speakers in Ukraine — arguments rejected by Kyiv and its allies. He insisted that any prospective peace deal must see Ukraine abandon its NATO bid and recognize Russia's territorial gains.

Ushakov said a suspension of some US weapons shipments to Ukraine wasn’t discussed in the Trump-Putin call.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Denmark after meeting with major European Union backers that he may talk to Trump in the coming days about the suspension.

"I hope that maybe tomorrow, or close days, these days, I will speak about it with President Trump," he said.

The previous publicly known call between Trump and Putin came June 14, a day after Israel attacked Iran.

The resumed contact between Trump and Putin appeared to reflect their interest in mending US-Russian ties that have plummeted to their lowest point since the Cold War.

Ushakov said the leaders discussed developments in Syria and expressed interest in pursuing bilateral projects in the energy sector and space exploration, during what he described as "frank, businesslike and concrete conversation."

The Kremlin adviser added that Putin even suggested that the US and Russia could exchange movies promoting "traditional values shared by us and the Trump administration."

On Tuesday, Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron held their first direct telephone call in almost three years.