A report by Toni Mrad, English adaptation by Nadine Sassine
In an apartment, Israel, specifically the Mossad, assassinated Ismail Haniyeh, the political bureau chief of Hamas.
On the fourth day after the assassination, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps clarified the findings of the investigation conducted by the authorities. Their conclusion was that Ismail Haniyeh was killed by the launch of a short-range missile, equipped with a warhead weighing about seven kilograms, accompanied by a powerful explosion from outside his room.
The statement from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards accused the "Zionist regime" of planning and executing the operation, with support from the US government, which they described as criminal, and promised a decisive response to the crime at the appropriate time and place, and in the suitable manner.
The Revolutionary Guards' account came to put an end to the information circulated by media around the world that spoke about Haniyeh's assassination by an explosive device planted by the Mossad in his room at his residence in Tehran, using Iranian agents.
Whatever the nature of the operation, what happened in Tehran at dawn on Wednesday was part of a long series of assassinations attributed to Israel against Iranian officials and leaders on Iranian soil, most of which the Israeli state did not acknowledge.
What are the most prominent of these?
On November 27, 2020, Israel assassinated the prominent nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, near the capital, Tehran.
In 2022, Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei was killed in front of his home in Tehran after being shot by armed men on a motorcycle. Before that, specifically in 2010, Majid Shahriari, founder of the Iranian Nuclear Society, was assassinated by a bomb attached to his car.
A year later, scientist Dariush Rezaeinejad was killed by unknown gunmen on a motorcycle in Tehran. In the same year, Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, who played a role in developing Iran's ballistic missile capabilities, was killed.
In 2012, scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, who worked at the Natanz nuclear site, was killed in a car bomb explosion in Tehran.
Although Israel did not announce its responsibility for all these attacks, it is the prime suspect according to Tehran, and it has succeeded several times in penetrating Iran's security.
The question remains, why?
By carrying out these assassinations, Israel aims to weaken Iran's strategic and defensive capabilities, particularly its nuclear program, which Tel Aviv considers a threat to its national security, explaining the targeting of scientists over the years.