Three sons of the head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, along with several of his grandchildren, were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike on a refugee camp in western Gaza City.
An Israeli airstrike targeted a car carrying members of the Haniyeh family in the Al-Shati refugee camp as they were giving good wishes to the camp’s residents for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, eyewitnesses told Anadolu.
The eyewitnesses said the airstrike effectively destroyed the car, killing or injuring everyone inside.
Medical sources told Anadolu that the airstrike resulted in the deaths of three of Haniyeh’s sons – Hazem, Amir, and Mohammed – as well as several of their own children, in addition to injuring others.
The Gaza media office said of the deadly attack: “The Israeli occupation army committed a horrendous massacre today, Eid al-Fitr day, against the Ismail Haniyeh family, the head of the political bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement-Hamas, when Israeli warplanes targeted a civilian car carrying some of his sons and grandchildren.”
The airstrike killed five people and injured others, the office added in a statement.
The office condemned “in the strongest terms the ongoing Israeli occupation crimes against the Palestinian people, as hospitals received more than 125 martyrs killed by the Israeli occupation army in the past 24 hours, cold-bloodedly and without regard for the feelings of Muslims.”
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Haniyeh himself said in a televised statement: “The occupation believes that by targeting the sons of the leaders, they will break the resolve of our people, but this bloodshed will only strengthen our steadfastness in our principles and attachment to our land.”
He added: “My sons remained in Gaza and did not leave the territory; like all the sons of our people, they are paying a heavy price in the blood of their sons, and I am one of them.
“We say to Israel: What you haven’t taken by destruction, massacres, and extermination, you won’t take at the negotiating table.”
Meanwhile, according to an Israeli media outlet the attack was carried out by a missile launched from an Israeli drone.
“Eliminating members of the Haniyeh family constitutes another link in Israel’s pursuit of the Hamas leadership,” Israeli Channel 14 said late on Wednesday.
The assassination “was carried out by a drone belonging to the air force using a missile that accurately targeted the car carrying members of the Haniyeh family,” it added.
“The liquidation of the Haniyeh family was the result of cooperation between the fire control centre in the Southern Command (of the Israeli army), the air force, and Shin Bet (security agency), which provided accurate information,” it said.
Separately, the Israeli broadcasting authority quoted an anonymous Israeli security official as saying: “The target of the assassination was the three sons of Haniyeh.”
In the first comment from an Israeli deputy on the incident, Knesset member Almog Cohen, from the far-right Jewish Power party, said: “I received excellent news about the assassination of three of Ismail Haniyeh’s sons and two of his grandchildren.”
Cohen also threatened Haniyeh in a televised statement quoted by local daily Israel Hayom, saying: “You’re next.”
In a phone call, the Turkish president extended condolences to Ismail Haniyeh over the death of several of his family members in an Israeli airstrike, the Turkish Communications Directorate said on Wednesday.
During the call, Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Israel will be held accountable for its crimes against humanity before the law.
And the Yemeni Houthi group said Wednesday that the targeting of the sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh reveals “the extent of the Israeli failure in the field” in the Gaza Strip.
“We extend our condolences to the head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement on the martyrdom of three of his sons and a number of his grandchildren as a result of an Israeli aggression airstrike,” the group’s spokesman Mohammed Abdul-Salam wrote on X.
“These great sacrifices, along with the rest of the sons of Gaza and the occupied West Bank, only enhance the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of Israeli arrogance,” he added.
