Turkey mourned the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Friday with prayers in mosques throughout the country, including in Hagia Sophia, the timeless architectural marvel of Christianity which was converted to a mosque.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared Friday a national day of mourning “in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and in solidarity with our Palestinian brothers and sisters.”
In a statement on X, he called Haniyeh a “martyr” and condemned the “perfidious assassination” of his close ally and “brother” Haniyeh, the political leader of the Islamist Palestinian movement Hamas.
“May God have mercy on my brother Ismail Haniyeh, fallen in martyrdom,” Erdogan wrote on the X social media platform, denouncing “Zionist barbarity”.
Hamas leader Haniyeh had good relations with Turkey
Haniyeh, who spent much time in Turkey before the Oct. 7 attacks launched by Hamas on Israel that sparked the ongoing war in Gaza, last paid a visit to Erdogan in Istanbul in April.
Thousands of people marched in Istanbul on Wednesday to denounce the death of Haniyeh, killed with his bodyguard in a pre-dawn strike on their accommodation in Tehran early Wednesday, in an attack that has been blamed on Israel.
The demonstrators held posters with Haniyeh’s photos and banners reading, “Martyr Haniyeh, Jerusalem is our cause and your path is our path.”
Protesters were chanting “murderer Israel, get out of Palestine,” “Thousands of greetings from Istanbul to the resistance in Gaza” and waving Turkish and Palestinian flags during the march in the Fatih district of Istanbul.
While Hamas is viewed as a terror organization by the European Union and NATO allies of Turkey like the US, Erdogan has described it as “a liberation movement.”
Who was the Hamas leader Haniyeh?
Ismail Haniyeh is widely considered Hamas’ overall leader and has been a prominent member of the movement since 1980.
The 62-year-old was born in a refugee camp near Gaza City and joined Hamas during the First Intifada, or uprising.
He briefly served as Palestinian prime minister—appointed in 2006—but was dismissed a year later after Hamas ousted the rival Fatah Party from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly violence.
He was elected head of Hamas’ political bureau in 2017, and the US Department of State designated him a terrorist in 2018.
He has lived in Qatar for the past several years.
In January 2024, Israel assassinated the deputy leader of Hamas Saleh al-Arouri by a drone strike in Beirut.
Arouri, 57, was the first senior Hamas political leader to be assassinated since Israel launched an air and ground offensive against Gaza’s Hamas.