Thousands bid farewell to slain Hamas chief
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was buried in Qatar after his killing in Tehran, an attack blamed on Israel that has heightened regional tensions as the Gaza war dragged on.
Haniyeh was laid to rest in Lusail, north of the capital Doha, following funeral prayers at Qatar’s largest mosque attended by thousands of people.
Haniyeh, the Palestinian armed group’s political chief, played a key role in mediated talks aimed at ending nearly 10 months of war between Hamas and Israel in the Gaza Strip.
The burial was restricted to a small number of people, including one of Haniyeh’s daughters, Sara, who shared a video on social media showing her pouring holy water over a pebble-topped grave before lowering her head to kiss it.
“In this moment, I buried my soul under the dirt, and I departed. I departed with all the pain of the world in my ribs,” she captioned the video uploaded on X.
Mourners earlier on Friday lined up inside Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque, where Haniyeh’s casket, draped in a Palestinian flag, was briefly carried into the shouts of angry mourners.
Others prayed on mats outside at 44 degrees Celsius (111 degrees Fahrenheit).
“He was a symbol, a resistance leader… people are angry,” said Taher Adel, 25, a Jordanian student residing in the Qatari capital.
At the ceremony, Haniyeh’s predecessor, Khaled Meshaal, said the slain leader had “served his cause, his people… and never abandoned them.”
Turkiye and Pakistan announced a day of mourning to honor Haniyeh, while Hamas called for a “day of furious rage.”
Many mourners in Doha wore scarves that combined the Palestinian flag with a checkered keffiyeh pattern and the message in English: “Free Palestine.”
Haniyeh and a bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn “hit” on their accommodation in Tehran, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said. Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian a day earlier.
Israel, accused by Hamas, Iran, and others of the attack, has not directly commented on it.