File Photo: Azzam Al-Hayya. Photo courtesy of Quds news.
“Targeting the sons of Palestinian leaders will not weaken the resistance’s position,” Hamas said in a statement.
Khalil Al-Hayya, Hamas’ top Gaza-based political leader in exile and the movement’s lead negotiator in indirect ceasefire talks, told Al Jazeera that the strike was intended to send a message that resistance leaders and their families were not immune from assassination.
He warned that Israel was pursuing “a systematic policy of intimidation” and attempting to derail mediation efforts surrounding US President Donald Trump’s proposed Gaza ceasefire framework and the Board of Peace initiative.
“Does it make sense to talk about strategic matters when the Israeli occupation does not comply even with the basics of life?” Al-Hayya stated.
He said the second phase of negotiations was supposed to include a full Israeli withdrawal, the deployment of international forces, and the entry of a technocratic committee “formed since January, still sitting in Cairo and not being allowed to enter.”
Palestinians in Gaza, he added, were living “alongside rodents and diseases” under Israel’s blockade, starvation campaign, and relentless bombardment.
Since the start of the Washington brokered truce between Israel and Hamas in October 2025, the Israeli occupation army has killed 837, wounded more than 2,381, and impeded all efforts to start the reconstruction of the strip.
In tandem, Tel Aviv has refused to implement the terms of the ceasefire by withdrawing troops from Gaza and allowing unhindered entry of humanitarian aid to a population on the brink of famine due to the Israeli blockade.
“This is absurd. This is nonsense. This is the selectivity of what the Zionist enemy wants,” Al-Hayya said.
He stressed that Hamas remained prepared to move forward with negotiations if Israel implemented the first phase of the agreement.
“If the Israeli occupation fully implements the first phase, we are ready to go and discuss the details of the second phase,” he said.
Azzam Al-Hayya died on Thursday after succumbing to wounds sustained in an Israeli strike on Gaza City’s Al-Daraj neighbourhood the previous night, according to medical sources and Hamas officials.
Palestinians mourn the loss of Azzam Al-Hayya, son of Hamas leader in Gaza Khalil Al-Hayya. Photo courtesy of Quds news.
Medical staff at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital said his injuries had been “severe and critical.”
Gaza health officials and the civil defence agency said Wednesday’s Israeli attacks were large-scale and killed at least five Palestinians across the territory, with later reports raising the toll to six following a strike in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood.
Crowds of Palestinians gathered in Gaza City for his funeral, with prayers held at Al-Kanz Mosque before mourners carried his body to the Baptist Hospital cemetery east of the city for burial, according to local reports and Al Jazeera.
Azzam Al-Hayya was the fourth son of Khalil Al-Hayya to be killed in Israeli attacks. His twin brother, Hammam Al-Hayya, was killed in an Israeli strike that targeted his father in Doha last September, while two other sons were killed during Israel’s assaults on Gaza in 2008 and 2014. Several of Al-Hayya’s daughters and grandchildren have also been killed during the ongoing war.
Al-Hayya emerged as Hamas’s most senior political figure from Gaza after a series of Israeli assassinations targeting the movement’s leadership, including the assassinations of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July 2024 and the killing of Yahya Sinwar in late 2024.
In June 2024, Israel killed 10 members of Haniyeh's family in an Israeli airstrike in the Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Since October 2023, Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed more than 72,600 Palestinians and wounded over 172,000 others, according to Palestinian health authorities.
It also displaced most of the strip’s population and devastated civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and refugee camps, amid catastrophic humanitarian conditions.
Khalil Al-Hayya is currently in Cairo leading a Hamas delegation in talks with Egyptian and regional mediators over the ceasefire agreement and Gaza’s future, according to media reports.
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