Israeli airstrike kills 10 family members of Hamas leader Haniyeh in Gaza | News on the Israel-Palestine conflict

Israeli forces kill 24 Palestinians in three attacks, while Hamas blames the Biden administration for the “war of extermination.”

According to the Palestinian group and the enclave’s civil defense, ten family members of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh were killed in an Israeli air strike in the Shati refugee camp in the north of the Gaza Strip.

Hamas confirmed the attack on the Haniyeh family and the death toll on Tuesday, saying it held the administration of US President Joe Biden responsible for continuing the “war of extermination” against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

It said the United States would continue to provide Israel with “political and military protection and time to complete the task of destruction and annihilation in the Gaza Strip.”

Mahmud Basal, a spokesman for the Civil Defense Agency, told AFP that the attack on Tuesday morning was directed against the Haniyeh family’s home in Shati.

“The attack left 10 martyrs dead, including Zahr Haniyeh, the sister of Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas’ political bureau,” Basal said, adding that several bodies were likely still under the rubble but that “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 said, also reporting “several injured” in the attack.

In a statement, Hamas called on “the international community and the United Nations to assume their responsibility in the face of these ongoing heinous crimes, to take urgent action to protect innocent civilians and to hold the terrorist leaders of the occupation accountable for their crimes.”

The Israeli military said two buildings in Shati and Daraj Tuffah were attacked overnight. The buildings were used to hide fighters who had been involved in attacks on Israel before the current conflict on October 7. The social media statement did not mention the attack on the Haniyeh family home.

Al Jazeera’s team on the scene said those killed from the Haniyeh family included Zahr Abdel Salam Haniyeh, Nahed Haniyeh Abu Ghazi, Iman Haniyeh Umm Ghazi, Ismail Nahed Haniyeh, Muhammad Nahed Haniyeh, Moamen Nahed Haniyeh, Zahra Nahed Haniyeh, Amal Nahed Haniyeh, Shahad Nahed Haniyeh and Sumaya Nahed Haniyeh.

In April, an Israeli airstrike in central Gaza killed three of Haniyeh’s sons and four grandchildren, after which the military accused them of “terrorist activities.”

Haniyeh said at the time that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the outbreak of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7 last year. The war has claimed the lives of more than 37,600 people in the area.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the war would continue even if a ceasefire was agreed with Hamas.