The burial ceremony for Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in Iran on Wednesday, is under way in Qatar.
Funeral prayers for Haniyeh will take place at the Imam Muhammed bin Abdul Wahhab mosque – the largest in Qatar – before he is buried at a cemetery in Lusail, a city north of Doha.
Prominent figures in the Hamas movement – including his predecessor as leader, Khaled Meshaal – stood on the tarmac at Doha airport as the plane carrying Haniyeh’s coffin landed from Iran on Thursday afternoon.
Haniyeh was killed during a visit to Iran’s capital. Iran and its allies have blamed Israel, though Israel has not claimed responsibility for his death.
Hamas said that “Arab and Islamic leaders” and those involved with other Palestinian factions would attend, as well as members of the public.
Turkey and Pakistan announced a day of mourning on Friday in honour of Haniyeh, while Hamas has called for “roaring anger marches… from every mosque” to take place after Friday prayers to protest Haniyeh’s killing.
At a separate funeral ceremony for Haniyeh which took place in Tehran on Thursday, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, vowed that Israel would suffer a “harsh punishment” for the killing.
Haniyeh had been based in Doha since about 2019. The Hamas political office moved to the Qatari capital in 2012, following the closure of its previous office in Damascus, Syria.
Haniyeh had played a key role in indirect talks with Israel over a potential ceasefire deal for the war in Gaza.
The heads of the CIA, Mossad and the intelligence services of Egypt and Qatar had attended negotiations in Doha
Haniyeh’s burial caps a week of soaring tensions in the Middle East, which escalated with the killing of 12 children and teenagers in a strike on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel accused Hezbollah and vowed “severe” retaliation, though Hezbollah denied it was involved.
Days later, senior Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr was killed in a targeted Israeli air strike in Beirut. Four others, including two children, were also killed.
Hours after that, Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran, Hamas’s main backer. He was visiting to attend the inauguration of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian.
Israel has not claimed responsibility for the assassination, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said afterward that Israel delivered “crushing blows” to Iran’s proxy groups in recent days.
A senior Hamas official told the BBC the killing took place in the same building where Haniyeh had stayed during previous visits to Iran. Three Hamas leaders and a number of guards were with him in the same building, they said.
The circumstances around his death remain unclear.
The killing of Haniyeh left the leadership of Hamas in “a state of shock”, top Hamas officials told the BBC.
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official, told a news conference that a missile hit Haniyeh “directly”, citing witnesses who were with him.
But a report in the New York Times, which cites seven officials, says Haniyeh was killed by a bomb that had been smuggled two months ago into the building where he was staying.
The BBC has not been able to verify either of these claims.
