Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran — Did Israel track him via WhatsApp?

Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated on Wednesday during a visit to Iran — heightening fears of a wider conflict in the Middle East. Iran and the Palestinian Islamist militant group have accused Israel of carrying out the strike with some conspiracy theorists suggesting the political leader was tracked via WhatsApp.

"Jewish billionaire Yan Borysovych Koum has been linked to the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Using his company WhatsApp, Israeli intelligence installed spyware on Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh phone via a WhatsApp message. The exact location of Ismail Haniyeh was then given and IDF used a drone to launch a missile strike," alleged one social media user.

It is however pertinent to note that these claims remain unverified. Meta apps such as Facebook and WhatsApp are also banned in Iran and face intermittent restrictions. 

The allegations echo earlier claims that Meta had ‘facilitated the death of Palestinians’ by using a software known as Lavender AI.

According to a joint investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call earlier this, the Israeli Defence Force had used the technology to identify potential Hamas militants following the October 7 attack. The investigation report suggests that Lavender used broad parameters to identify more than 37,000 people in Gaza for potential airstrikes. First-hand testimony by Israeli intelligence officers also revealed how the Benjamin Netanyahu-led forces made use of Lavender to generated a database of individuals with ‘militant’ characteristics.

Theories linking Meta and Lavender appear to have originated from a blog post in mid-April that accused the Mark Zuckerberg-run group of sharing user group metadata with the IDF. The post — shared by an individual named Paul Biggar — also cited Israeli links within the Meta and WhatsApp management teams to underscore his assertion. 

“Israel is killing people based on being in the same WhatsApp group as a suspected militant…One input to the AI is whether you're in a WhatsApp group with a suspected member of Hamas. But the part I want to focus on is whether they get this information from Meta…” Biggar had written. 

The allegations gained momentum on social media platforms earlier this year despite a lack of clear evidence.

(With inputs from agencies)