Several Palestinians in the Gaza Strip said Haniyeh had achieved "martyrdom" because of the way he was killed.

"This is what every Palestinian hope for... to obtain martyrdom while defending his land, his people and its sanctities," said Muhammad Farwana, 38, from the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israeli troops ended a major ground assault this week that displaced tens of thousands of Palestinians.

"Haniyeh was someone who gave away his children and grandchildren on the same path."

In June, 10 family members of Haniyeh were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip.

In April, Haniyeh lost three sons and four grandchildren in an Israeli strike in central Gaza.

Haniyeh said at the time that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the war broke out on October 7.

His daughter Sara Ismail Haniyeh mourned his death in a post on X, praising a man "loved by everyone".

“This man could have signed the prisoner exchange deal with the Israelis,”said Saleh al-Shannar, who was displaced from his home in northern Gaza . “Why did they kill him? They killed peace, not Ismail Haniyeh.”

Nour Abu Salam, a displaced woman, said the assassination shows that Israel doesn’t want to end the war and establish peace in the region. “By assassinating Haniyeh, they are destroying everything,” she said.

Hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators have marched through Ramallah in the occupied West Bank in protest against the assassination. They carried dozens of green Hamas flags and chanted, “The people want al-Qassem Brigade,” a reference to the resistance group’s military wing.

Open support in Ramallah for Hamas is rare. Ramallah is the administrative capital of the West Bank and is governed by the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority, long at odds with Hamas over the governance of the two Palestinian territories.

AFP journalists in Ramallah witnessed employees leaving government buildings in response to the strike call, as well as hundreds of people marching with flags through the city's streets.