Hamas leader granddaughter succumbs to injuries from Israeli strike on 1st day of Eid-al-Fitr

By Mohammad Sio

ISTANBUL (AA) - Malak Haniyeh, the granddaughter of Hamas's political bureau chairman Ismail Haniyeh, succumbed on Monday to injuries sustained in an Israeli strike that killed other family members on the first day of the Muslim festival of Eid-al-Fitr, medical sources told Anadolu.

Three sons of Haniyeh, along with several of his grandchildren, were killed on Wednesday in an Israeli airstrike in a refugee camp in western Gaza City.

The 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.

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.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack by the Palestinian group Hamas in which nearly 1,200 people were killed.

More than 33,700 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have since been killed in Gaza, and nearly 76,400 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice. An interim ruling in January ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.

* Writing by Mohammad Sio in Istanbul.