Persian opponents of Iran’s Islamist rulers have mocked them widely on social media and expressed support for Israel after Hamas and its Iranian patron blamed the Jewish state for the assassination of Hamas’ political chief in Tehran on Wednesday.
Ismail Haniyeh was killed in a predawn strike on a residence in Iran’s capital, where he had traveled to attend the inauguration of Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian the previous day. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the strike on the senior leader of Hamas, a U.S.-designated terror group.
“I have seen a lot of comments on X and Instagram from Persian social media users who are happy about Haniyeh’s assassination,” Beni Sabti, a Persian Israeli researcher at Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies, said in a VOA interview.
Many Iranians opposed to the Islamic Republic have long criticized its authoritarian leaders for sending money and weapons to regional proxy groups such as Hamas rather than investing national resources domestically. Those critics flooded social media with Persian-language posts celebrating Haniyeh’s demise and referring to him with the Persian hashtag for “cutlet,” a popular Persian dish of ground meat patties.
Kayhan London, a Britain-based Persian news site, posted a picture by its cartoonist depicting Haniyeh embracing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, while a hand representing Israel paints a red target on Haniyeh’s back. The slain Hamas leader had embraced Khamenei in a meeting the day before.
Kayhan London editor Nazenin Ansari told VOA she saw Persian social media users mocking the Islamic Republic’s Iranian supporters for posting messages mourning Haniyeh.
The Israeli government’s Persian Instagram channel, israelinpersian, also attracted strong positive engagement from its 1.5 million followers.
After the Haniyeh killing, the account published an image of a raised fist painted in the Israeli flag, with an accompanying message saying: “Israel is our home, and we will stay here.”
The image drew 32,000 likes in the first three hours of being posted, a much faster pace of likes than any other post on the israelinpersian account in the previous two weeks.
Sabti said it is too early to tell if the flood of Persian posts backing Israel and mocking the Islamic Republic means that social media users in Iran are ready to return to nationwide antigovernment protests that have been dormant since early 2023.
“We cannot expect an eruption of protests anytime soon because the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is ready to deal with internal unrest as it has done before,” he said.
Sabti noted that the IRGC detained some Iranians after they celebrated in the streets with candies and fireworks when then-President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May.
“I think the celebratory expressions will be confined to social media for now,” Sabti said.
