Israeli attack kills son of Hamas leader in talks with Trump-led board

The war’s reach hit Hamas’ leadership circle again when an Israeli airstrike killed the son of the group’s chief negotiator in US-mediated talks on Gaza’s future, a senior Hamas official said, as Hamas leaders gathered in Cairo to try to shore up their fragile truce with Israel.

Azzam Al-Hayya, the son of Khalil Al-Hayya, died of wounds sustained in an Israeli strike overnight, according to health officials and Hamas officials. He was the fourth son of Hamas’ exiled Gaza chief to be killed in Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military did not respond to a request for comment.

Later in the evening, health officials and the Hamas-run interior ministry said an Israeli airstrike hit a police post in western Gaza city, killing at least three police officers and wounding others, including one policeman.

Locals survey the security forces’ control point after an Israeli bomb struck it in Gaza city

Reuters has reported that Israel has stepped up strikes on Gaza’s Hamas-run police force, an apparatus the militant group has used to tighten its control over the parts of Gaza it governs.

Previous Israeli strikes have also killed three of Hayya’s other sons

Khalil al-Hayya, who has seven children, has survived multiple Israeli attempts on his life. An Israeli strike in Doha last year aimed at Hamas leadership killed another of his sons, but Mr Hayya survived. Two more sons were killed in earlier attempts to assassinate him, in Gaza strikes in 2008 and 2014.

Khalil al-Hayya headed Hamas delegations in mediated talks with Israel aimed at securing a Gaza ceasefire deal

In remarks to Al Jazeera after the overnight strike, before his son’s death was announced, Mr Hayya accused Israel of trying to derail mediators’ efforts to advance US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, overseen by his so-called ‘Board of Peace’.

“These Zionist attacks and violations clearly indicate ‌that the occupation does not want to abide by a ceasefire or by the first phase,” Mr Hayya said.

Read more: Who is Khalil Al-Hayya, the top Hamas figure targeted by Israel?

Dozens of Palestinians chanting “Allahu akbar”, or “God is Greatest”, gathered in Gaza for the funeral of Mr Hayya’s son. They performed special prayers before carrying him to burial, while women relatives stood beside the white-shrouded body to pay their respects.

“Your martyrdom, my beloved brother, you and my brother Hammam, and Osama and Hamza, will not deter my father, Dr Khalil Al-Hayya, from this ‌principle, nor from these constants,” the victim’s sister said inside the morgue.

Hazem Qassem, the group’s spokesperson in Gaza, said the killing of the Hamas leader’s son was a failed Israeli attempt to pressure the negotiating team and extract political concessions.

“We say that this repeated policy of targeting the leaders and the sons of leaders will not succeed in extorting a political position from our Palestinian people, nor the Hamas leadership, nor its negotiating delegation,” Mr Qassem told Reuters.

Hamas disarnment remains a sticking point in talks

The latest violence came as Hamas leaders and representatives of other Palestinian factions met regional mediators and the Board of Peace’s lead envoy, Nickolay Mladenov, in Cairo this week, officials said, in a bid to move Mr Trump’s Gaza plan into its second phase.

Mr Trump’s Gaza plan, which Israel and Hamas agreed ⁠to in October, calls for Israeli troops to withdraw from Gaza and for reconstruction to begin as Hamas lays down its weapons.

But Hamas’ disarmament remains one of the main obstacles in efforts to carry out the plan and lock in an October ceasefire that brought two years of full-scale war to a halt.

Children search through rubbish at the Nuseirat camp for Palestinian refugees in central Gaza

A Hamas official told Reuters yesterday that the group informed Mr Mladenov it would not enter serious talks on implementing the second phase until Israel fulfilled commitments from the first phase of the Gaza agreement, including a complete end to attacks.

Since the ceasefire took effect, at least 830 Palestinians have been killed, according to local medics, while Israel says militants have killed four of its soldiers during the same period.

Israel says its strikes are intended to thwart attempts by Hamas and other Palestinian militants to carry out attacks on its forces.

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