Hamas’s envoy in Iran describes Haniyeh assassination: ’ceiling and walls collapsing on his body’

Khaled Al-Qadoumi, who was in Ismail Haniyeh’s guesthouse at the time of his assassination, has described the moment the group’s political leader was killed as more details emerge about the attack.

An unverified image of the Tehran building where Hamas political chairman Ismail Haniyeh was killed on July 31. The damaged part of the building is said to be shown as shrouded. Picture: social media

Hamas’s envoy in Iran, who was in Ismail Haniyeh’s guesthouse at the time of his assassination last week, has described the moment the group’s political leader was killed in an explosion.

Iran blames the assassination on Israel and has vowed retaliation.

Khaled Al-Qadoumi, told Iran’s Khabar Network he heard the explosion and he thought it was “an earthquake or thunder, lightning and rain”.

“But when I opened the window, the atmosphere was normal,” he said. “Moments later, I noticed smoke rising and felt that something had happened.

“Shortly after, Iranian protection told me that Ismail Haniyeh was martyred. As a representative of Hamas in Iran, I asked to see Haniyeh and, when I entered his suite, I found the ceiling and walls from the outside collapsing on his body from the outside to the inside, and the same situation was also with Haniyeh’s companion, the martyr Wassim.”

(Haniyeh’s bodyguard Wassim Abu Shaaban, who was also killed in the blast).”

Mr Al-Qadoumi’s description seems at odds with Iran’s official explanation of the blast, which Tehran claims was an airborne attack in which a “short-range projectile” weighing about 7kg was fired at the building causing a “strong blast” that killed Haniyeh and his bodyguard.

Ismail Haniyeh, lower centre, at the swearing in of Iran's new President, Masoud Pezeshkian, at the parliament in Tehran on July 30, the day before he was assassinated. Picture: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

The Hamas leader had been visiting Tehran for the inauguration of President Massoud Pezeshkian.

UK and US media have reported Haniyeh was killed by a bomb smuggled into his apartment and detonated by remote, from outside Iran.

At the weekend, The UK Telegraph reported at the weekend that Iranian agents hired by Mossad were seen on closed-circuit television planting explosives in the residence.

Explosive devices were placed in three rooms of the Tehran guesthouse, then one was detonated remotely from abroad, the newspaper reported, quoting sources within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose agents were supposed to protect such visitors as Haniyeh.

Ismail Haniyeh meets Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on July 39. Picture: Khamenei.ir / AFP

The original plan was to assassinate Haniyeh in the building in May when he attended the funeral of Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s former president, it said. Raisi died in a helicopter crash.

The operation didn’t go ahead due to the large crowds inside the building, two Iranian officials of the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps were quoted by The Telegraph as saying.

“Instead, the two agents placed explosive devices in three rooms of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in north Tehran where Haniyeh might stay,” the newspaper said.

Palestinians protest in the streets of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank after the assassination. Picture: Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP

The Iranian news website Event 24 quotes former government minister Ali Younesi as saying Mossad’s influence in the country was worrying and that all officials should be worried about their lives.

It says speculation about the assassination has ranged from missile launches from the slopes of the Tochal mountain, a resort area in northern Tehran, to under-the-bed bombings and a drone.

A man gazes down on the resort area and Tehran from the Tochal mountain. Pocture: AFP

On the possibility of an external projectile being fired, Event 24 says it “has obtained new evidence that shows that the option of targeting Haniyeh’s location from Tochal was very serious, at least from the point of view of the security forces at the time of the incident”.

Mourners attend the funeral for Haniyeh in the Qatari capital Doha on August 2. Picture: Mahmud Hams / AFP

Event 24 says Tochal residents’ versions of events support an IRGC statement that a projectile was fired from “a place outside the area of ​​the guest accommodation” and this place was probably somewhere in the Tochal mountain area.

“However, it is not clear whether the damaged building is the same building whose pictures were published in media,” it says.

Iranians attend their funeral ceremony for Haniyeh on August 1. Picture: Majid Saeedi/Getty Images

Event 24 also reports Khalil al-Hayya, an Hamas official, told a press conference in Tehran: “A missile hit the room where Haniyeh was in, and the windows broke and the wall collapsed before it hit.”

The news site says a report attributed to Iranian intelligence, published on some Telegram channels “close to the IRGC’’, had claimed that Haniyeh “was housed completely anonymously” in the north of Tehran, and even the janitor of the building and the local police did not know about his identity.

“Except for the heads of the forces, no one knew about the residence of Haniyeh, except [for Mohsen] Haji-Mirzaei, the head of the President’s office, who was informed about the identity of the person who was accommodated … for the necessary security arrangements,” it says.

Ismail Haniyeh, as the Doha-based political bureau chief of Hamas, speaks to the press after a meeting with the Iranian foreign minister in Tehran on March 26, Picture: AFP