Hamas Leader’s Family Killed in Gaza Strike as Truce Talks Drag On

AFP/APP 

Gaza: An Israeli strike Wednesday killed three of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s sons in Gaza, the Palestinian leader and Israel’s military said, as war rages in the Palestinian territory despite ongoing truce negotiations.

Hamas said in a statement that three of Haniyeh’s sons and four of his grandchildren were killed in the air strike.

Israel confirmed the killings, saying the sons were “Hamas operatives” who were “on their way to carry out terrorist activities.”.

The strike came as talks in Cairo aimed at a ceasefire and a hostage release deal dragged on without signs of a breakthrough.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, suggested the strike was an attempt to shift Hamas’s negotiating stance but insisted it would not work.

US President Joe Biden meanwhile said Hamas “needs to move” on the latest truce proposal, which the militant group has said it is considering.

The United States has also been ramping up pressure on Israel to agree to a truce, increase the amount of aid it allows into the besieged Gaza Strip, and abandon plans to invade the southern city of Rafah.

Biden labeled Israel’s conduct in the war a “mistake” in an interview broadcast on Tuesday, before warning on Wednesday that it was not allowing enough aid into the territory.

As Israeli forces kept up combat operations and air strikes across the Gaza Strip, Muslims gathered to pray amid the devastation of the six-month war to mark the first day of Eid al-Fitr, which ends the fasting month of Ramadan.                     

‘Disproportionate response’ 

Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz said that militarily “Hamas is defeated” but insisted that Israeli troops would nevertheless enter Rafah and return to Khan Yunis, from which they withdrew several days ago.

The army would have to fight for years to come, “in the Gaza Strip, in the West Bank, and in the Lebanon Front,”  he added.

More than 1.5 million civilians are sheltering from the war in Rafah, the last Gazan city yet to face an Israeli ground invasion.

Israel’s close ally, the United States, has repeatedly warned against an invasion.

Biden, voicing his growing frustration with the hawkish Netanyahu, issued some of his sternest criticism yet of the war.

“I think what he’s doing is a mistake,” Biden told the US network Univision in an interview that aired on Tuesday night, having been recorded last week.

He urged Netanyahu to “just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, total access to all food and medicine going into” Gaza.

Talks mediated by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar have been ongoing since Sunday, with Hamas still considering the latest proposal.

Hamas spokesman in Doha, Hossam Badran, told AFP: “Hamas is studying the offer presented… It has not responded yet.”

A framework being circulated would halt fighting for six weeks and see the exchange of about 40 hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Biden, speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, said, “It’s now up to Hamas; they need to move on from the proposal that’s been made.”. 

Reacting to the strike that killed his sons and grandchildren, Haniyeh told Al Jazeera, “If they (Israel) think that targeting my children… at the peak of these talks and before the movement’s response, if they think that this will force Hamas to change its positions, they are delusional.”.

Beyond Washington, there has been a growing chorus of international criticism aimed at Israel’s conduct of the war and the paucity of aid entering the territory. 

On Wednesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez warned that what he called Israel’s “disproportionate response” in Gaza risked “destabilizing the Middle East and, as a consequence, the entire world.”.

Spain is among several Western nations, including Ireland and Australia, to have suggested they would recognize a Palestinian state in the near future as a starting point for wider peace talks.