Abbas declares mourning and flags at half-mast after Haniyeh's assassination and describes the crime as a "cowardly act and a dangerous development."

On Wednesday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas declared general mourning and flags to be flown at half-mast. Following the Israeli assassination of former Prime Minister and head of the Hamas political bureau, Ismail Haniyeh.

While Tel Aviv remained silent, both Hamas and Iran announced the assassination of Haniyeh in an Israeli air strike that targeted his residence in Tehran, the day after his participation in the inauguration ceremony of the new president, Massoud Pezeshkian, while the Israeli army refrained from making a statement about Haniyeh’s assassination, saying: “We do not comment on these reports.” ".

The official Palestinian News Agency (Wafa) said: “The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, announced today, Wednesday, mourning and lowering flags for one day, to mourn the assassination of former Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.”

Earlier Wednesday, the agency said: “The President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, strongly condemned the assassination of the head of the Hamas movement, the senior leader Ismail Haniyeh, and considered it a cowardly act and a dangerous development.”

Abbas called on "the masses and forces of the Palestinian people to unity, patience and steadfastness in the face of the Israeli occupation."

Haniyeh served as Prime Minister after Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, but he was dismissed on June 14, 2007 due to the conflict existing at that time between Fatah and Hamas.

On May 6, 2017, Haniyeh was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau, succeeding Khaled Meshaal, and was re-elected for the second consecutive time in 2021 for a term ending in 2025.

Since the founding of Hamas in 1987 to resist the occupation, Israel has assassinated a number of the movement’s most prominent leaders, including: Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz Al-Rantisi, Saleh Al-Arouri, Ahmed Al-Jaabari, and Salah Shehadeh.

Haniyeh's assassination came at a time when Israel, with American support, has been waging a war on the Gaza Strip since October 7. It resulted in more than 130,000 dead and wounded Palestinians, most of them children and women, and more than 10,000 missing.

In conjunction with its devastating war on Gaza, Israel escalated its attacks in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, killing 594 Palestinians, wounding 5,400, and arresting 9,870, according to official Palestinian data.