A sister of Hamas leader-in-exile Ismail Haniyeh was among those killed in an Israeli Air Force attack on a building on Gaza’s northern coast overnight Monday, Arab reports claimed on Tuesday morning.
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed that fighter jets struck two buildings in the northern Strip that were being used by Hamas terrorists, including several who invaded the Jewish state on Oct. 7 and took hostages.
The terrorists had entrenched themselves in school buildings in the Al-Shati Camp and Daraj Tuffah area, the IDF said in a statement. The military added that it took precautions to avoid harm to noncombatants.
Hamas terrorists “systematically violate international law, exploiting civilian infrastructure and the civilian population as human shields to carry out acts of terrorism against the State of Israel,” the army said.
Israeli ground forces entered Gaza on Oct. 27, following a weeks-long air campaign in response to the Oct. 7 attacks. Jerusalem’s stated goals for the war are to destroy Hamas as a military and governing force in Gaza, ensure that it can not threaten Israel again and return all hostages.
Some eight years ago, Haniyeh relocated from Gaza to Qatar, which sponsors and shelters the Palestinian terror group’s top leaders.
In April, an IAF strike strike in the Al-Shati Camp killed six relatives of the terrorist leader, including three of his sons. Hazem, Ameer and Mohammed Haniyeh were all members of Hamas’s “military” wing.
In October, Hamas claimed that an airstrike in Gaza City’s Sheikh Radwan neighborhood killed 14 of his relatives. The terrorist leader’s brother and nephew died in the strike, reports said.
Sister Sabah Haniyeh, an Israeli citizen who lives in the Bedouin town of Tel Sheva, near Beersheva, was charged with incitement and identifying with a terror group after being arrested earlier this year.
