Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in an early morning bomb explosion on July 31 in Tehran, Iran. Israel almost certainly carried out the attack, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had ordered the relevant ministries to stay silent as of the time of writing. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed Haniyeh’s bodyguard was also killed in the strike. Haniyeh was 61.

Haniyeh lived in Qatar but was in Tehran to attend the inauguration of Masoud Pezeshkian as president. Qatar has been harboring Hamas and funding its work in Gaza for years. The nation has no official relations with Israel, but since the Israel-Gaza war started last October, Israel has been using Qatar as a back-channel mediator. Israel had promised the Qatari government it wouldn’t assassinate Hamas’s leadership on Qatari soil.

Tehran isn’t in Qatar.

Hamas spokesman Sami Babu Zuhri called the assassination “a grave escalation that aims to break the will of Hamas and the will of our people and achieve fake goals. We confirm that this escalation will fail to achieve its objectives.”

Certain foreign actors were quick to offer condolences.

We offer our condolences to the Palestinian people who have given hundreds of thousands of martyrs like Haniyeh in order to live in peace in their own homeland, under the roof of their own state. It has been revealed once again that the Netanyahu government has no intention of achieving peace. This attack also aims to spread the war in Gaza to a regional level. If the international community does not take action to stop Israel, our region will face much greater conflicts.
—Turkish Foreign Ministry

The criminal and terrorist Zionist regime martyred our dear guest in our house and made us sad, but it also prepared a harsh punishment for itself.
—Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran

Haniyeh was one of the younger founders of Hamas in 1988. He was close to Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Hamas’s spiritual leader, and became Yassin’s personal secretary in 1997. He became the Palestinian Authority’s prime minister after winning elections in 2006. This ended in 2007 after a violent spat with PA President Mahmoud Abbas. In 2017, he became political bureau chairman, the closest thing Hamas has to an overall leader. Analysts, however, view Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader on the ground in Gaza, as the man ultimately making decisions in the war.

Nevertheless, Haniyeh was ultimately responsible for everything that happened on Oct. 7, 2023. And he was responsible for all the rocket barrages Israel has faced for years before that. He was a very big fish.

Now that he is dead, what does this mean for Hamas?

Haniyeh is only the latest and most high-profile in a line of assassinated Hamas top brass. Israel assassinated Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri in a January 2 strike in Beirut, Lebanon. Marwan Issa, the second-in-command of Hamas’s military, died in March after an Israeli air strike in Gaza. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced today that Mohammed Deif, Hamas’ main military leader in Gaza, is also dead.

Slowly but surely, Hamas is becoming leaderless.

This is, of course, good news for Israel. The remaining leaders know Israel has the will and capability to take them out whenever it wants. This may intimidate the current leadership to be softer in hostage negotiations. And as soldiers on the ground have fewer people to receive orders from, this will impact Hamas’s fighting ability.

Hamas is a very resilient organization. It has survived Israel beheading its leadership before, and it will survive going forward. But the latest developments mean Hamas has to find new leaders.

The Trumpet expects Palestinian politics to take a more volatile turn going forward because of a prophecy in Zechariah 14. “Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (verses 1-2).

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in Jerusalem in Prophecy:

The subject is the Day of the Lord—the end time, Christ prophesied that He would ‘gather all nations’ to battle Him in Jerusalem. Then He makes what might appear to be a strange statement. One half of Jerusalem is to be taken captive. Notice how specific this prophecy is. East Jerusalem—one half of the city—will be conquered by the Palestinians! …

Looking at the ongoing violence in Jerusalem today, … we can easily see how one half of Jerusalem shall be taken captive in the very near future. The present violence is an embryo that is about to explode into much greater violence.

Based on this, we expect a radical takeover of the West Bank. Right now, the Palestinian factions in the West Bank are weak and divided. New leadership in Hamas could change that.

To learn more, request a free copy of Jerusalem in Prophecy.

Correction: initial reports suggested Haniyeh died in a missile strike. Media have since confirmed it was a bomb that killed Haniyeh.