According to family and Hamas media sources, an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip on Wednesday killed three sons of Ismail Haniyeh, the most senior political leader of Hamas. Haniyeh acknowledged the deaths of more family members but warned Israel that it would not “break the resolve of our people.”
Hamas reported the assassination of Ameer, Hazem, and Mohammed Haniyeh near the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City.
The Israel Defense Forces killed “three Hamas military operatives that conducted terrorist activity in the central Gaza Strip,” according to a statement on Wednesday. The IDF said that Ameer Haniyeh was a cell commander in Hamas’ military branch, while Mohammad and Hazem Haniyeh were military operatives.
According to Hamas, the strike hit a vehicle near the Haniyeh family’s residence.
“All the people of Gaza paid a high price and saw their sons’ blood being shed, and I am one of them,” Haniyeh told Al Jazeera in a live interview on Wednesday. He claimed that several of his grandchildren were also killed and that the group was targeted while visiting relatives for Eid, according to Al Jazeera.
“The occupation thinks that by targeting the sons of the leaders, they will break the resolve of our people,” Haniyeh went on to say. “We will not retreat, and we are going to go all the way to liberate Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa.”
He said that 60 members of his family had been slain since Israel commenced its war in Gaza against Hamas, sparked by the group’s horrific terror attack on October 7.
Israel and the United States have long regarded Hamas as a terrorist organization, yet it is also one of the two major Palestinian political forces. Haniyeh, who heads the group’s politburo, has spent years at its office in Qatar, where he lives.
