Palestinian resistance groups rally around Hamas leader after deadly Israeli strike kills children and grandchildren

Various resistance groups erupt in a chorus of condemnation and condolence after an Israeli airstrike claimed the lives of Hamas’ leader, Ismail Hanieyh’s sons and his grandchildren.  On Wednesday, three sons and three grandchildren of Haniyeh, Hamas’ Political Bureau chief, were killed in the strike that targeted a vehicle at the al-Shati refugee camp in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, which is enduring a genocidal Israeli war.

The Islamic Jihad, Hamas’ fellow Gaza-based resistance movement, condemned the atrocity ”in the strongest terms,” calling it a “war crime” and a “barbaric massacre committed by the criminal Nazi entity.”   “This cowardly operation confirms that the enemy is in a state of confusion as a result of the failure to achieve its goals on the ground, and seeks to compensate for it by directing the arrows of its blind hatred in revenge against the sons of the fighters and their families,” it added.

The group vowed that such acts of barbarity would only increase the resistance’s determination and steadfastness in committing to the rights of the Palestinian people.  Such resistance, the Islamic Jihad asserted, would continue “until the occupation is defeated and the enemy is forced to stop the genocidal war.”

The Israeli regime launched the war on Gaza on October 7 following Operation Al-Aqsa Storm by the territory’s resistance groups against the occupied territories.

Nearly 33,500 Palestinians, mostly women and children, have been killed in the brutal military onslaught so far.

The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement said the massacre committed against the Hamas’ leader’s family reflected “the confusion and impotence of the crisis-ridden enemy’s leadership” in the face of the creativity and steadfastness of the resistance’s fighters and their strikes.  “These crimes will not break the will of the resistance, nor will they push it to offer the concessions that it (the enemy) has failed to achieve on the battlefield,” it added.

Yemen’s Ansarullah popular resistance movement, meanwhile, offered its condolences to Haniyeh, noting that the atrocity “reveals the extent of the Israeli failure in the field.”  “These great sacrifices…indeed strengthen the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli arrogance,” Ansarullah stated.

Separately, Deputy Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Jamil Mezher spoke with the senior Hamas’ official on the phone, pledging allegiance on the part of the PFLP with the resistance movement.

“All of us are united in this battle to affirm to the enemy that Gaza will not kneel, and victory will inevitably be the ally of the Palestinian people, its leadership, and its valiant resistance,” Mezher stated.

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