Gaza City — An Israeli air strike in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City on Wednesday wounded the son of Khalil al-Hayya, the head of Hamas’s political bureau and the group’s chief negotiator in indirect talks with Israel, killing one other person and wounding at least nine additional Palestinians.
Israeli Strike Hamas Negotiator — Al-Hayya identified his son, Azzam, as among the wounded, describing his condition as serious. The man killed in the strike was identified as Hamza al-Sharbasi. Medics confirmed the casualty figures from the Daraj attack, one of several Israeli strikes carried out across Gaza on the same day.
Two additional air raids on Wednesday claimed four more lives. In the Zeitoun neighbourhood of northern Gaza City, three members of a single family were killed as they attempted to erect a tent near the Salah al-Din Mosque. In a separate strike near the al-Mawasi area, Israeli forces targeted a vehicle carrying Naseem al-Kalazani, head of the anti-narcotics force in Khan Younis, killing him and wounding at least 17 others, according to medics. A senior colonel in Gaza’s police force was also killed in one of the day’s raids.
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The strike on Azzam al-Hayya marks a devastating continuation of personal loss for his father. Khalil al-Hayya has now lost four sons to Israeli operations — two during the 2008 and 2014 rounds of fighting in Gaza, and a third killed last year in an Israeli strike targeting Hamas leadership in Doha. Taher al-Nono, a Hamas official and aide to al-Hayya, confirmed details of Wednesday’s attack.
The strikes come at a moment of acute diplomatic tension. Israel’s security cabinet convened earlier this week to deliberate on renewing large-scale military operations in Gaza. Negotiations have stalled over Israel’s demand that Hamas fully disarm — a condition the group has flatly rejected. Hamas has insisted that the question of its weapons can only be addressed within a broader political framework leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The violence underscores the fragility of a ceasefire agreement signed in October of last year. Since that agreement, Gaza’s Ministry of Health reports that at least 837 Palestinians have been killed and a further 2,381 wounded. The cumulative toll since Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in 2023 now stands at a minimum of 72,619 killed and 172,484 wounded, according to the same ministry.
Israeli Strike Hamas Negotiator: Regional Implications
The targeting of al-Hayya’s family carries particular symbolic weight given his central role in ceasefire diplomacy. As Hamas’s top negotiator, al-Hayya has been the principal interlocutor in indirect talks mediated by Qatar, Egypt, and the United States. Wednesday’s strike on his son will almost certainly complicate any near-term prospect of renewed negotiations, with Hamas already hardening its position against Israeli disarmament demands.
The broader pattern of strikes — hitting a police commander, an anti-narcotics official, and civilians attempting to shelter near a mosque — reflects what Gaza health authorities describe as an intensifying campaign across multiple areas of the territory. With Israel’s security cabinet actively weighing a return to full-scale operations, humanitarian conditions in Gaza, already catastrophic after more than 18 months of war, face the prospect of further deterioration.
