An Israeli air strike killed 10 members of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s family, the Gaza civil defence agency said on Tuesday but the Israeli military is yet to confirm the development.
Mahmud Basal, the spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence, told AFP that several bodies were likely still under the rubble but “we do not have the necessary equipment” to extract them. The bodies have been transferred to Al-Ahli hospital in nearby Gaza City, Basal added.
Haniyeh, Hamas’s Qatar-based political leader, lost three sons and four grandchildren in an Israeli strike in April in central Gaza, with the military accusing them of “terrorist activities”. According to some reports, about 60 members of his family had been killed since the Palestinian militant group’s war with Israel broke out on October 7.
This report comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that Israel remained committed to its proposed Gaza ceasefire and hostage deal, and his military chief said the remaining Hamas forces in the southern Gaza. “We are committed to the Israeli proposal that President Biden welcomed. Our position has not changed. The second thing, which does not contradict the first, we will not end the war until we eliminate Hamas,” Netanyahu said in a speech to parliament.
Israel’s military issued a statement from a situational assessment by its chief of staff in the area of Rafah, where Israeli forces have been fighting Hamas’ remaining battalions. “We are clearly approaching the point where we can say we have dismantled the Rafah Brigade, that it is defeated not in the sense that there are no more terrorists, but in the sense that it can no longer function as a fighting unit,” said Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi.
Hamas’s deputy chief in Gaza, Khalil Al-Hayya, said: “We are a people on its land and a resistance (group) defending its land. If the occupation (Israel) announces it is achieving its goals, let it do so and let it say what it wants and the field can validate and falsify.” He added: “If Israel wants to convince itself that it is done, it should exit the strip,” in response to a question about the Israeli army’s remarks on dismantling Hamas during an interview with the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV on Monday.
(With agency inputs)
Comments
0 comment