Israeli airstrike kills three sons, three grandchildren of Hamas leader, Haniyeh

Israeli airstrike kills three sons, three grandchildren of Hamas leader, Haniyeh

Three sons and three grandchildren of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a Gaza refugee camp, according to the Hamas-affiliated news agency, Shehab.

Haniyeh told Al Jazeera his children were visiting relatives for Eid at the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza when they were targeted.

The Hamas chief decried what he described as Israel’s brutality, but he stressed that Palestinian leaders will not back down if their families and homes are targeted.

“There is no doubt that this criminal enemy is driven by the spirit of revenge and the spirit of murder and bloodshed, and it does not observe any standards or laws,” Haniyeh said, adding that 60 members of his family have been killed since the start of the war.

“We’ve seen it violate everything on the land of Gaza. There is a war of ethnic cleansing and genocide. There is mass displacement.”

Also, Gaza’s media office confirmed that Haniyeh’s children and grandchildren were killed by Israeli fighter jets when a “civilian vehicle” was targeted on the first day of Eid el-Fitr.

Several of his children and grandchildren were riding in the vehicle, it said.

“We strongly condemn Israel’s ongoing attacks against our Palestinian people,” the office said, adding that at least 125 bodies of slain Palestinians arrived at various hospitals in the past 24 hours alone.

“We hold the US administration, the international community responsible, and the Israeli occupation responsible for these massacres and crimes that are still taking place in this ongoing genocide,” it added.