MOSCOW, July 31. /TASS/. Moscow strongly condemns the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian Hamas movement, the Russian Foreign Ministry's deputy spokesman, Andrey Nastasyin, told a news briefing.

"We strongly condemn the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of the political bureau of the Palestinian Hamas movement as a result of a missile attack on his residence in Tehran," Nastasyin said. "It is obvious that the organizers of this political assassination were aware of the dangerous consequences for the entire region that this attack is fraught with."

As Nastasyin emphasized, it is noteworthy that the attack was carried out while the Hamas leader was in Tehran at an official invitation to participate in the inauguration of Iran’s President-elect Masoud Pezeshkian.

"There is no doubt that the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh will have an extremely negative impact on the indirect contacts between Hamas and Israel on mutually acceptable terms of a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip," he said.

"Once again, we urge all parties involved to display restraint and refrain from steps that might lead to a dramatic degradation of the security situation in the region and provoke a large-scale armed confrontation," the Russian Foreign Ministry official pointed out.

Haniyeh’s death

Earlier, Hamas said that the head of the movement's political bureau was killed in an Israeli strike on his residence in Tehran, where he had arrived for the presidential inauguration ceremony. The Al Hadath TV channel reported that Haniyeh was killed by a direct missile strike. The Hamas political bureau’s deputy chief Musa Abu Marzook vowed that the assassination would not remain unretaliated.

Israel has not officially commented on the incident. According to The Jerusalem Post, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office has prohibited all members of the cabinet from doing so.

Ismail Haniyeh had held various positions in the Hamas leadership since 2004. In 2007-2014 he led the one-party Palestinian government. Since 2017 he had led the movement's political bureau. He participated in negotiations on resolving the current conflict in Gaza and the release of Israeli hostages and was involved in negotiations on Palestinian issues in previous years as well. In September 2022, he met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.