Haniyeh will be laid to rest in Qatar: Hamas

Published: 1 July 2024

Funeral prayers to be held at Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque in Doha on Friday; burial at a cemetery in Lusail

NT Bureau
Doha

The burial of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh is to be held in Doha on Friday a day after a public funeral prayer ceremony in Tehran, the Palestinian group said Wednesday.

Haniyeh “will be given an official and public funeral ceremony in the Iranian capital, Tehran, tomorrow,” Hamas said in a statement, explaining his body would be transported to the Qatari capital later the same day.

It said funeral prayers will be held at the Imam Muhammad bin Abdul Wahhab Mosque, Doha’s largest mosque, after Friday prayers, with the burial carried out at a cemetery in Lusail.

Haniyeh’s body will be laid to rest at the Founder Imam Cemetery in Lusail, a suburb of Doha.

The statement noted that the funeral in Doha would be attended by “the public and factional leaders, as well as Arab and Islamic leaders.”

A delegation from Palestinian faction Fatah will take part in the funeral in Qatar, the movement said on Wednesday.

Deputy Chairman of the movement, Mahmoud Al-Aloul, and the Secretary of its central committee, Jibril Rajoub, are both due to attend the ceremony.

A large number of people are expected to attend the funeral prayers and the burial.

Meanwhile, there was an outpouring of condolences and grief on Qatari social media on the death of Haniyeh.

Iranian media reported that Haniyeh was assassinated in an airstrike that targeted his residence in north Tehran around 2 a.m. local time on Wednesday. The attack reportedly took place at a guesthouse for war veterans managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Hamas also issued a statement in which it vowed to take revenge for the assassination of its leader, whom it said was killed in Tehran by a “treacherous Zionist raid.”