- An Israeli airstrike has killed Haniyeh’s sons and grandchildren.
- President Erdogan assured Haniyeh that Israel would be held accountable for the crimes against humanity it had committed.
A Israeli airstrike has killed four grandchildren and three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
“The blood of my children is not more valuable than the blood of the children of the Palestinian people. All the martyrs of Palestine are my children,” Ismail Haniyyah said.
According to eyewitnesses who spoke to Anadolu, the Israeli airstrike targeted a vehicle carrying members of the Haniyeh family in the Al-Shati refugee camp while they were extending Eid al-Fitr greetings to the camp’s residents. The witnesses reported that the airstrike completely destroyed the vehicle, resulting in casualties among all occupants.
Haniyeh’s sons Hazem, Amir, and Mohammed – along with several of their children were killed. Medical sources confirm that the airstrike also caused injuries to others.
The Gaza media bureau commented on the lethal assault:
“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.”
In a Media statement, Haniyeh remarked:
“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.”
On Wednesday evening, Isreali news channel 14 asserted, “Eliminating members of the Haniyeh family constitutes another link in Israel’s pursuit of the Hamas leadership.”
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 said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed his condolences to Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh during a phone conversation on Wednesday. Erdogan assured Haniyeh that Israel would be held accountable for the crimes against humanity it had committed.
Knesset member Almog Cohen had this to say regarding the incident: “I received excellent news about the assassination of three of Ismail Haniyeh’s sons and two of his grandchildren.”
Cohen also issued a warning to Haniyeh in a televised statement reported by the local newspaper Israel Hayom, stating: “You’re next!”
In response to the incident, the Yemeni Houthi group asserted that the incident reveals “the extent of the Israeli failure in the field…(in the Gaza Strip).
The Houthi’s spokesperson 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”.
