Azzam al-Hayya, the 32-year-old son of Hamas’ chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya, died Thursday after being wounded by an Israeli strike in Gaza City a day earlier. The militant group said the strike killed one other person and left several wounded, while Israel’s military has not commented on the incident. The older al-Hayya, who is based abroad, leads Hamas’s team in the fragile ceasefire talks with Israel.
In comments to Al Jazeera after his son was wounded, Khalil al-Hayya said if his son was targeted, “it would be an honor to me, to him, and to all Palestinians.” His daughter Tasnim, speaking at Shifa Hospital, said the family would not be deterred. “We are like all our people. Everyone has suffered and everyone has sacrificed. We are one of them,” she said.
Hamas accused Israel of using targeted killings to pressure negotiators. It was not clear whether Azzam al-Hayya was the intended target of the strike. Israel has killed several top Hamas leaders and their relatives over the years. Another of al-Hayya’s sons, Hammam, was killed in an Israeli strike on Hamas figures in Qatar last September.
The al-Hayya family deaths come as key stipulations of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire remain unmet. The October agreement, which ended large-scale military operations and led to the release of all remaining hostages taken in Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack, called for Hamas’s disarmament, the deployment of an international stabilization force, and Israel’s full withdrawal from the half of Gaza its troops still control. Israel and Hamas each accuse the other of violations.
On Thursday, another Israeli strike killed three Hamas-affiliated security forces at a guard post, Shifa Hospital reported, and a fourth officer was critically wounded, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said. The Israeli military described the target as a Hamas command center.
Gaza continues to reel under the cumulative toll of the war. More than 72,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its offensive in response to the 2023 attack, in which militants killed about 1,200 people and seized 251 hostages. Palestinians in Gaza face daily hardships including water shortages and rodent infestations in sprawling tent camps.
In a separate incident, relatives gathered at Shifa Hospital to mourn three family members — a man, his son and his nephew — killed Wednesday in an Israeli strike while they were setting up new tents after leaving a school where they had been sheltering.
In Lebanon, Israel’s military said it killed Ahmed Balout, a commander in Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, along with two other militants in a strike on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Wednesday. The attack was the first on the area since a separate U.S.-brokered ceasefire was announced on April 17, although fighting persists in southern Lebanon. Hezbollah did not immediately comment. Israel said it has killed more than 85 Hezbollah militants and struck 180 sites used by the group in the last week, without providing evidence.
Khalil al-Hayya, asked about disarmament, said Hamas would be ready to discuss the ceasefire’s second phase only after Israel fulfills the first phase, which includes a cessation of hostilities and a surge in humanitarian aid.