Hamas described the killing of its political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, as a serious escalation that would not go unanswered. The overnight assassination in Iran will be seen as a serious blow to efforts to secure a cease-fire in Gaza, as talks brokered by the US, Qatar and Egypt continue after months of talks.
The group characterized the killing of Haniyeh as insidious. The Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, said it was a "critical and dangerous event that takes the battle to new dimensions and will have major consequences for the entire region."
Haniyeh has long headed Hamas' politburo and is considered a moderate figure within the movement, whose role has become crucial in the ongoing diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire.
Qatar's prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, expressed dismay at the killing, fearing it would further jeopardize already fragile ceasefire talks. "How can mediation work when one side kills the other side's negotiator?" he asked.
Haniyeh, 62, was elected head of the political wing in 2017, before leaving Gaza and going into exile in Qatar two years later. From exile, he became the Palestinian group's face of international diplomacy, traveling between Turkey, Iran and Qatar, joining a group of Hamas leaders who had taken refuge in Doha and were unable to return to Gaza. Nevertheless, Hanije was seen as a key line of communication with hardliners like Jahje Sinvar in the blocked territory.
Diplomats, officials and observers saw him as relatively pragmatic compared to other more militant voices emerging in Gaza. "He was not only a diplomat, but also a moderate, someone who was willing to consider that reconciliation and diplomacy with Israel was the way to go," said Tahani Mustafa of the International Crisis Group.
"The more you kill or get rid of moderates, the more hardliners come to the fore, or you turn moderates into hardliners... To think that something like this will bring Hamas to its knees, or forcefully change the movement, is a serious miscalculation," she said.
The Qassam Brigades praised Haniyeh's "significant contributions" in a statement marking his death, saying he played an important role in "strengthening the resistance and unifying the efforts of the sons of the nation".
Haniyeh's allies and even former rivals condemned the assassination, amid fears that his death during a visit to Tehran could provoke a strong response.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, called the killing an act of cowardice and a serious escalation, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who met Haniyeh frequently in Ankara, called it a despicable act.
Turkey's foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, a veteran negotiator, shared a photo of himself with Haniyeh on social media.
"He dedicated his life to Palestine and bringing peace. We are witnessing the efforts he recently made to achieve a ceasefire. Even when members of his family were massacred by Israel, he never lost faith in peace," wrote Fidan.
Born in 1963 in the Shati refugee camp in Gaza, Haniyeh became active in politics while studying Arabic literature at a university in the Gaza Strip. He joined Hamas when it was founded during the first Palestinian intifada in 1987 and was repeatedly arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli authorities.
He was first exiled to Beirut in 1992, returned to Gaza a year later and quickly rose through the ranks of Hamas in 1997 after being appointed head of office to the group's founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.
By 2003, he had become a trusted collaborator, photographed at Yassin's house in Gaza holding the phone to a quadriplegic so he could take part in the conversation.
Both were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza that year, and Yassin vowed that "the politics of assassination will not extinguish Hamas" in the aftermath. Israel killed Yasin in a helicopter attack a year later.
Hanije was an early proponent of the group's political agenda. and in 2006 he became the Palestinian Prime Minister after Hamas won the most seats in the Palestinian parliamentary elections. He survived the second assassination attempt that year when he was the target of firearms at the Rafa crossing with his entourage. Hamas blamed the attempt on the former leader of Fatah in Gaza, Mohamad Dahlan, but he replied that "killing Haniyeh is an honor he cannot claim."
The assassination attempt on Haniyeh did little to threaten his leadership, but Abbas removed him as prime minister in 2007 after Israel withdrew from Gaza and Hamas took control. Despite his experience, he has become seen as an advocate of reconciliation with Fatah, including attending the recent signing of a unity agreement in China.
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Haniyeh also knew how to rouse a crowd, smiling as he greeted supporters with chants of "resistance" after a ceasefire marked the end of Israel's 2012 assault on Gaza. A second, much longer Israeli attack on the territory in 2014 targeted his house.
He ruled Gaza until 2017, when he was elected head of the Hamas political bureau during an internal power struggle. When he left Gaza two years later, he was succeeded by the hardliner Sinvar.
From permanent exile, Haniyeh's role has been to build bridges with foreigners who support the group, particularly restoring relations with Iran that have soured since the Syrian uprising, resulting in Tehran increasing its supply of larger and more sophisticated weapons to Hamas.
The US State Department designated Haniyeh as a terrorist in 2018, saying he was "an advocate of armed conflict, including the killing of civilians". The International Criminal Court said earlier this year it wanted to issue a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of involvement in the planning of the October 7 attacks on towns and kibbutzim in southern Israel that killed 1.200 Israelis and took about 250 hostages.
After the attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that "every Hamas leader is a dead man."
This threat took away the young members of Hanije's family who remained in Gaza this year. He was filmed in April as he received news that three of his sons - Hazem, Amir and Mohamad - had been killed along with four of his grandchildren when an Israeli airstrike targeted the car they were riding in. Hanius, whose beard and hair were completely white at the time, looked up at the sky briefly before closing his eyes and nodding, hands clasped tightly in front of his torso.
At the time, he said the attack would not change the group's demands for a permanent ceasefire and the return of displaced Palestinians to their homes.
"All our people and all the families of Gaza have paid a high price in blood, and I am one of them," Hanije said then.
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