Funeral prayers for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, assassinated in Tehran, were held in Qatar with high-profile attendees.
Funeral prayers for Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated by Israel in Iran on Wednesday, were held in Qatar’s Imam Abdul Wahhab Mosque on Friday.
Haniyeh’s body arrived in Doha on Thursday following funeral processions in Tehran, where Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei led the funeral prayers.
The prayers in Doha were attended by Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Father Amir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al–Thani, in addition to senior Qatari officials, including Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
Other Qatari officials included Qatar’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah, Shura Council speaker Hassan bin Abdulla Al-Ghanim, and Ibrahim Yousif Abdullah Fakhro, the Director of the Protocol Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Officials from numerous countries were among the attendees at the funeral, including Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Malaysia’s Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Shamsul Anuar Nasarah, Malaysian Senator Mujahid Yusof Rawa and Former Vice President of Indonesia Jusuf Kalla.
Hamas officials were also in attendance to bid their assassinated member farewell. The list included former head Khaled Mashal as well as senior members of the Palestinian group Mousa Abu Marzook and Khalil Al-Hayya.
The Secretary General of Islamic Jihad Ziyad Al-Nakhalah was also among the attendees.
Dozens of mourners flooded the mosque and withstood over 45 degrees Celsius of the scorching summer heat to pay their respects to Haniyeh, who had lived in Doha since 2019.
Most donned scarves bearing the Palestinian flag or traditional keffiyeh patterns for the ceremony held under tight security.
Doha traffic police and Qatar’s internal security forces monitored all approaches and police-lined highway embankments adjoining the mosque grounds.
Meanwhile, funeral prayers in absentia were held in different parts of the world, including Morocco, Pakistan and Türkiye, where Friday was observed as a national day of mourning.
Haniyeh’s body will be transported to his final resting place at the Founder Imam Cemetery in Lusail in the afternoon.
Haniyeh and his bodyguard were killed in a pre-dawn explosion at their accommodation in Tehran early on Wednesday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said.
Haniyeh had travelled to Iran to attend Tuesday’s swearing-in of President Masoud Pezeshkian.
His assassination came at a critical time amid indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, in hopes of reaching a ceasefire in Gaza.
Qatar’s prime minister had questioned the Israeli killing of Haniyeh, who had played a key role in the mediated talks to end nearly 10 months of war on the besieged enclave.
“Political assassinations and continued targeting of civilians in Gaza while talks continue leads us to ask, how can mediation succeed when one party assassinates the negotiator on the other side? Peace needs serious partners and a global stance against the disregard for human life,” he said on X on Wednesday.
