Gaza authorities say Israeli attack killed 10 relatives of Hamas chief

Gaza’s Civil Defense Authority said an Israeli airstrike early Tuesday killed 10 family members of the Qatar-based Hamas chief. Ismail Haniyaincluding his sister.

The Israeli military, which is on a campaign to destroy Hamas after the October 7 attack, announced AFP They are “aware of the reports but cannot confirm them.”

The attack hit the Haniyeh family home in the Al-Shati refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip, said Mahmud BasalSpokesman for the civil defense of the Hamas-ruled area.

“There are ten martyrs … as a result of the attack, including Zahr Haniyeh, the sister of Hamas political bureau chief Ismail Haniyeh,” said Basal AFP.

He said numerous bodies were probably still under the rubble, but “we do not have the necessary equipment” to recover them.

Civil defense teams took the bodies to Al-Ahli Hospital in nearby Gaza City, Basal added, also reporting “several injured” in the attack.

Hamas, the militant Islamist group that controls the Gaza Strip, is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and key Western allies, including the United States.

In a statement, Hamas listed the Haniyeh family home as one of the bombed houses in a list of “massacres” allegedly carried out by Israel in the Palestinian territories.

It said the alleged bombing showed that Israel “continues to disregard all international laws, human norms and values ​​by deliberately targeting innocent civilians and committing cruel massacres against them.”

Haniyeh lost three sons and four grandchildren in an Israeli attack in central Gaza in April. The military accused them of “terrorist activities.”

Haniyeh said at the time that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the war began on October 7.

The war began after Hamas’ unprecedented attack on southern Israel, which left 1,195 people, mostly civilians, dead. AFP Count based on official Israeli figures.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s devastating air, land and sea attacks have since killed at least 37,626 people in the Gaza Strip, again mostly civilians.