In April, an Israeli attack in northern Gaza killed three sons as well as the grandchildren of the Hamas chief. 

An Israeli aerial attack has killed at least 10 members of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh’s family in Gaza’s Al-Shati refugee camp.

Among the killed is the sister of Haniyeh, 80-year-old Zahr Abdel Salam Haniyeh, who was found by Gaza’s civil defence team, and several of her children. 

Mahmud Basal, the spokesman for Gaza’s civil defence, told AFP that several bodies were still under the rubble, but due to the lack of necessary equipment, could not be pulled out.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, Hamas said that U.S. President Joe Biden was responsible for the continuation of the “war of extermination” against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas also called on the international community and the United Nations “to shoulder their responsibilities towards these ongoing horrific crimes, to take urgent action to protect innocent civilians, and to hold the terrorist leaders of the occupation accountable for their crimes.”

Last April, on the first day of Eid Al-Fitr, an Israeli airstrike on a civilian car killed three of Haniyeh’s adult sons and four young grandchildren, all under the age of 10. The Israeli military accused them of being on their way to “carry out terrorist activities”.

Haniyeh, who is based in Qatar, received the news over the phone while visiting wounded Palestinians evacuated from Gaza and receiving treatment at a hospital in Doha. 

He said that about 60 members of his family had been killed since the war broke out on October 7.

While the attack took place at a critical time amid ongoing ceasefire talks in Cairo, Haniyeh stressed that Hamas will not withdraw its demands for a comprehensive ceasefire and the unconditional return of displaced Palestinians. 

“If they think that targeting my children at the peak of these talks before the movement’s [Hamas’s] response is submitted will cause Hamas to change its positions, they are delusional,” Haniyeh said.

“The blood of my children is not more valuable than the blood of the children of the Palestinian people,” he went on to say. “All the martyrs of Palestine are my children.” 

Haniyeh noted that Israel “is driven by the spirit of revenge and the spirit of murder and bloodshed, and it does not observe any standards or laws”.

“We’ve seen it violate everything on the land of Gaza. There is a war of ethnic cleansing and genocide. There is mass displacement,” he told Al Jazeera.

Israel’s air, land, and sea campaign has killed at least 37,626 people in Gaza, primarily women and children, according to the health ministry.