Israeli forces say they have attacked the house of a senior Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza.
Though Haniyeh, the head of the group’s political bureau, lives in Qatar, the Israeli military claim his home was “used as terrorist infrastructure” and “a meeting place for the organisation’s senior officials”.
They said they used fighter jets on Wednesday night to strike the property.
Who is the Hamas leader whose home Israel says it struck?
As have been reported by The BBC, Israeli forces announced this morning that they used fighter jets to attack the house of Ismail Haniyeh, who is widely considered Hamas’s overall leader, last night.
Haniyeh was elected head of Hamas’s political bureau in 2017, but has been living in Qatar for several years.
He was a prominent member of Hamas in the late 1980s and was imprisoned by Israel for three years.
He then spent a year in exile before returning to Gaza. In 1997 he was appointed head of the office of Hamas’s spiritual leader, strengthening his position.
Haniyeh was appointed Palestinian prime minister in 2006 by President Mahmoud Abbas but was dismissed a year later after the group ousted Abbas’ Fatah party from the Gaza Strip in a week of deadly violence.
Haniyeh rejected his sacking as “unconstitutional”, stressing that his government “would not abandon its national responsibilities towards the Palestinian people”, and continued to rule in Gaza.
Palestinian news agency says civilians killed in air strike in central Gaza
Around 50 civilians were killed and dozens injured in Israeli air strikes carried out on Wednesday night, according to an official Palestinian news agency.
Wafa reported that Israeli military planes targeted the Sabra neighbourhood in the centre of the Gaza Strip, hitting a mosque.
The news agency said further strikes left three dead at the Malaysian school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in Gaza and that a child was killed in a bombing in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.
Israel’s military has not commented on the claims, but says its air strikes target Hamas infrastructure. The BBC has been unable to verify the reports.
On Monday, the Hamas-run health ministry said 11,240 people had been killed, including 4,630 children, since the Hamas attacks on Israel on 7 October.