Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's 3 sons killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza refugee camp

By Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) – 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.”

Israel has waged a military offensive on the Gaza Strip, killing nearly 33,500 people, since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas which killed some 1,200. It has also imposed a crippling blockade on the seaside enclave, leaving its population, particularly residents of northern Gaza, on the verge of starvation.

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

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which has urged Israel to do more to prevent famine in Gaza.​​​​​​​