The Israeli military says it struck and killed three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, saying they were working as operatives for the militant group inside the Gaza strip.
A statement from the military said the airstrike happened Wednesday. It described the men as a cell commander and two military operatives.
Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to have been killed in the war between Israel and Hamas.
The three sons — Hazem, Amir and Mohammad — were killed after the car they were driving in was bombed in Gaza’s Al-Shati camp, Hamas said. Three of Haniyeh’s grandchildren were also killed in the attack and a third was wounded, Hamas media said.
Haniyeh confirmed the deaths in an interview with the Al Jazeera satellite channel.
“The criminal enemy is driven by the spirit of revenge and murder and does not value any standards or laws,” Haniyeh said in the phone interview.
In his interview with Al Jazeera, Haniyeh said the killings would not pressure Hamas into softening its positions.
“The enemy believes that by targeting the families of the leaders, it will push them to give up the demands of our people,” he said. “Anyone who believes that targeting my sons will push Hamas to change its position is delusional.”
Haniyeh lives in exile in Qatar, where Al Jazeera is based. Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV station aired footage of Haniyeh receiving the news of the deaths while visiting wounded Palestinians who have been transported to a hospital in Doha.
As an aide received the news on his phone, Haniyeh nodded, looked down at the ground and slowly walked out of the room.
“There is no might and no power but by God,” Haniyeh muttered. “May God make matters easy for them.”
Haniyeh’s eldest son confirmed in a Facebook post that his three brothers were killed. “Thanks to God who honoured us by the martyrdom of my brothers, Hazem, Amir and Mohammad and their children,” wrote Abdel-Salam Haniyeh.
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Al-Aqsa TV said Hazem, Ameer and Mohammed Haniyeh were killed with family members in the strike near the Shati refugee camp in Gaza City. Ismail Haniyeh is originally from Shati.
The brothers were travelling with family members in a single vehicle targeted by an Israeli drone, Al-Aqsa TV said, adding that a total of six people were killed, including a daughter of Hazem Haniyeh, and a son and daughter of Ameer.
It was not immediately clear how their deaths might affect the months-long ceasefire talks being brokered by international mediators.
Earlier, Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz claimed Hamas has been defeated militarily, although he also said Israel will fight against it for years to come.
“From a military point of view, Hamas is defeated. Its fighters are eliminated or in hiding” and its capabilities “crippled,” Gantz said in a statement to the media in Sderot.
But, he added: “Fighting against Hamas will take time. Boys who are now in middle school will still fight in the Gaza Strip.”
People gathered for vigils in Jerusalem and around the world to remember those killed or taken hostage on Oct. 7, while the declining situation in Gaza increases calls for a ceasefire.
Gantz reiterated the Israeli government’s commitment to go into Rafah, the city in the far southern tip of the Gaza Strip where more than half the territory’s population of 2.3 million people is now sheltering. “Wherever there are terrorist targets — the IDF will be there,” he said.
The strike came as Palestinians in Gaza marked a muted Eid al-Fitr holiday ending the holy fasting month of Ramadan, visiting the graves of loved ones killed in the war. In the Jabaliya refugee camp near Gaza City, people sat quietly by graves surrounded by buildings destroyed in Israel’s offensive, which was in response to the deadly Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.
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Israel launched the war in response to the assault, during which militants killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took roughly 250 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
More than 33,400 Palestinians have been killed in the relentless fighting, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count but says most of the dead are women and children. Israel says it has killed some 12,000 militants, without providing evidence.
The war has ignited a humanitarian catastrophe. Most of the territory’s population has been displaced and with vast swaths of Gaza’s urban landscape levelled in the fighting, many areas are uninhabitable.