'Mossad recruited Iranian security agents to kill Haniyeh as early as May'

The Mossad hired two Iranian security agents to plant explosives in three separate rooms of a building where Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh was staying. This is what Haaretz and the Telegraph write. The British newspaper quotes two officials in Tehran. The New York Times had written that the attack was carried out with a bomb hidden in the Palestinian leader's flat months before his assassination.

According to the Telegraph, the original plan of the Israeli intelligence agency was to assassinate Haniyeh in May, when he attended the funeral of former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi. But the operation did not go ahead due to the large crowd inside the building and the high possibility of it failing. However, according to the UK newspaper, the agents placed explosives in the rooms of the compound and left Iran, then detonated the bombs from abroad.

"Mossad hired agents from the Ansar al-Mahdi security unit," an official of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (Irgc) told the British newspaper, referring to a unit tasked with protecting senior officials. Another Irgc official said it was 'a humiliation for Iran and a huge security breach'.

Dozens of arrests, at least more than 20, have been made in Iran in the search for possible accomplices and moles in the assassination of Haniyeh, in a protected residence in the heart of Tehran: so writes the New York Times - also reported by the Israeli media - which cites Iranian sources informed of the facts and close to the ongoing investigation. Among those arrested, writes the New York Times, were Tehran intelligence officials, senior military personnel and staff members of the residence where the explosion took place, run by the Guardians of the Revolution.

Haniyeh was not killed by a bomb hidden in his flat in Tehran, but by a 'short-range missile with a 7-kilo warhead' fired from outside. This is what the Iranian Pasdaran said in a note picked up by the local press. Tehran's revenge for the assassination of Haniyeh, they warn, will be 'severe' and will be carried out in the 'appropriate time, place and manner'. The Pasdaran, as also reported by the Israeli media, have also returned to point the finger at the United States: they assisted Israel in organising the murder of the Hamas political leader, is the accusation.