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Hamas leader Haniyeh’s daughter treated in Israeli hospital
It was revealed yesterday that the daughter of Hamas’s political leader in Gaza, Ismael Haniyeh, was recently treated in a Tel Aviv hospital. The hospital said that she was just one of more than 1,000 Palestinians from Gaza and the West Bank which they treat annually.
Although the hospital did not disclose which one of Haniyeh’s daughters it had treated, Avi Shushan, the spokesman for Ichilov Hospital said that she had been hospitalised for “a number of days” this month. Reuters reported that she was treated in Israel following complications regarding a routine medical procedure. Haniyeh, who is the most senior Hamas leader in Gaza and the overall deputy to exiled leader Khaled Meshaal, has 13 children. In June it was disclosed that Haniyeh’s mother-in-law had been treated in Israel for cancer, while his granddaughter was also transferred to an Israeli hospital in a critical condition last year.
Nonetheless, Haniyeh played a significant role in shaping the 50-day conflict with Israel this summer, during which Hamas pounded Israeli population centres with rocket fire on a daily basis. However, Haniyeh is thought to have personally spent most of this period underground, fearful of Israeli retribution.
Although Palestinian officials have neither confirmed nor denied the treatment of Haniyeh’s daughter in Israel, Ichilov Hospital released a statement yesterday saying that “she is one of more than 1,000 patients from the Gaza Strip and Palestinian Authority territories, children and adults, who we treat every year.” Haaretz says that during and since Operation Protective Edge, dozens of Gazans have been brought to Israeli hospitals for treatment.
Meanwhile, the Hamas-affiliated al-Resalah website yesterday reported that Hamas is already rebuilding tunnels aimed at attacking Israel, after Israeli forces destroyed dozens of such tunnels during this summer’s conflict which threatened local Israeli communities. The website says that the tunnels are viewed as “a place where an Israeli soldier would be kidnapped or killed.”