The home of Hamas’ senior political leader was destroyed in an alleged Israeli airstrike Saturday, officials said.
The family residence of Ismail Haniyeh, located in the Shati refugee camp on the northern outskirts of Gaza City, was hit Saturday morning, according to the Hamas-run media outlet in Gaza.
There were no immediate details about possible casualties or the true extent of the damage.
At the time of the strike, Haniyeh’s home was being used by his two sons, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad said.
Haniyeh was elected Hamas’ political chief in 2017, and has lived in luxurious “exile” in Qatar since 2019.
News of the latest strike came amid ongoing calls for a ceasefire as the number of Palestinians killed topped 9,200, less than one month after Hamas’ brutal Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel.
“The humanitarian situation in Gaza is horrific,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said late Friday. “An entire population is traumatized, nowhere is safe.”
Guterres warned that civilians and infrastructure must be protected as Israel continues its retaliatory bombardment of Gaza, and said civilians should not be used as human shields.
He also called on Hamas to release the estimated 240 hostages it has been holding since Oct. 7.
During his third wartime visit to Tel Aviv Friday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken echoed President Biden’s own call for a temporary end to fighting in order to address the humanitarian dilemma.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, said there would be no such pause until Hamas releases all the hostages.
“The bombardment gets closer day by day. We don’t know where to go,” Gaza City resident Adly Abu Taha said.
Taha has been sheltering in the grounds of the Al-Quds Hospital, on the city’s western edges, for the past three weeks.
The Israeli military has said that Hamas has essential military resources in Gaza City, including underground tunnels, command centers and bunkers.
Israeli officials have repeatedly urged northern Gaza residents to move south in anticipation of their bombardment – despite the fact that even those in the southern part of the region are unable to leave.
Israel has also continued to target southern Gaza, where it says it is also targeting Hamas members.
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“People never sleep. The sound of explosions never stops,” Raed Mattar, who is sheltering at a school in southern Khan Younis after fleeing from the north, said Saturday.
Around 1.5 million people in Gaza – or 70 percent of the population – have fled their homes in recent weeks, according to the UN.
An airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza early Saturday destroyed the home of at least one family.
Emergency workers pulled six injured people and three bodies – including one child – from the rubble.
In addition to airstrikes, the Israeli military has confirmed that ground forces with armored and engineering corps are operating in the south in order to remove booby traps from buildings.
Hamas terrorists were seen exiting a tunnel during the operation, and were subsequently killed by Israel’s troops, the military claimed.
Israeli forces said they were also targeted with attacks staged from tunnels in the northern Gaza Strip.
Outside of Gaza, the Israeli military said Saturday that it struck militant cells and a Hezbollah observation post in Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s first public address on the war Friday suggested that escalation was possible, but he did not completely throw himself behind his Hamas allies.
On Saturday, Blinken was set to meet in Amman, Jordan, with diplomats from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and the Palestinian Authority, which rules the West Bank.
In addition to efforts to arrange sending aid into Gaza and allow foreigners to leave the area, Blinken is is seeking help from allies to get the hostages released. And he is reportedly looking to get Jordan and the other Arab states to ponder the future of Gaza.
Thus far, leaders in the region have recoiled at America’s request that they play a bigger role in the war.
With Post wires