Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s niece has been in an Israeli hospital for over a month, receiving a bone marrow transplant for cancer even as her uncle’s Gaza-ruling terror group fired over 4,000 rockets into Israel, Israeli media reported.
Soon after the U.S. and Egyptian-braokered ceasefire on Friday, Haniyeh lauded Hamas’s “victory” in the 11-day war, declaring that the recent 11-day conflict had thwarted Israel’s attempts at building ties with the Arab world and thanked Iran for providing the weapons and funds to the terror group.
“I cannot but thank [Iran] who brought forth money and weaponry to the valiant resistance,” Haniyeh said, according to an English translation of his remarks by Press TV.
“This battle has destroyed the project of ‘coexistence’ with the Israeli occupation, the project of ‘normalization’ with Israel,” Haniyeh said, apparently referring to the widespread clashes that occurred between Arab and Jewish Israelis during the fighting, and Israel’s recent agreements to establish formal ties with four Arab nations.
Israel often gives medical treatment to Gazan Palestinians, including the family members of terrorist leaders. Haniyeh’s own mother-in-law, daughter and granddaughter have all in the past been hospitalized in Israel.
In his speech on Friday, Haniyeh, who was speaking from Qatar where he currently resides, also addressed the deadly clashes in Israel’s mixed Arab-Jewish cities as well as the Jewish state’s four recent normalization agreements with Arab nations.
“This battle has destroyed the project of ‘coexistence’ with the Israeli occupation, of the project ‘normalization’ with Israel,” he said in the speech, which was aired hours after Hamas and Israel agreed to a ceasefire Friday.
“We saw our Arab and Islamic nation arose, from east to west, in all its components and factions, behind Jerusalem and Palestine and the resistance,” Haniyeh said.
The recent conflict, Haniyeh declared, “defeated the illusions of negotiations, defeated the deal of the century,” in reference to the Trump administration’s peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It also “defeated the projects of normalizing (relations) with the Zionist occupation,” referring to the Trump-brokered normalization deals between four Arab countries and Israel.
“Resistance is the best strategic choice for liberation and return,” Haniyeh said.
He called the outcome of the conflict a “divine victory.”
Haniyeh also praised the “enormous support in the West and Europe,” and hailed those that took to the street in protest against Israel. Tens of thousands of people attended demonstrations in several European capitals over the weekend, including London and Paris. Protesters likened Israel to Nazi Germany, claimed it had perpetrated a “Holocaust” against the Palestinians, and burned Israeli flags.
“Jerusalem is the axis of the struggle,” Haniyeh added. “Gaza rose up so as to defend Jerusalem.”
Haniyeh’s niece is said to be receiving treatment in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov hospital.
The Maariv Hebrew-language daily cited Ichilov’s hospital’s spokesperson as saying that “during the war she was treated with dedication, even during the days of fighting.”
In response to the news, Member of Knesset from the conservative Yamina party Idit Sliman said: “Israel only knows how to give one type of humanitarian aid ,and it comes at the cost of [Israeli] civilians’ lives.”
Religious Zionist Party MK Orit Struck echoed Sliman’s remarks: “[The Israeli government] performing humanitarian acts towards one of our greatest enemies, who kidnap our soldiers and our civilians, must be in exchange for returning Israeli citizens.”
MK Mossi Raz from the leftwing Meretz party said: “It is a doctor’s Hippocratic oath to treat every sick and injured person that comes their way. They must do so without any regard to religion, race, nationality, identity, or family relation.”
In 2014, Haniyeh’s daughter was hospitalized at Tel Aviv’s Ichilov for “a number of days,” according to the hospital. Reuters reported at the time that the treatment followed complications during a standard medical procedure she had undergone in Gaza.
In June 2014, Haniyeh’s elderly mother-in-law was treated in Augusta Victoria Hospital in Jerusalem.
A year earlier, Haniyeh’s one-year-old granddaughter received treatment in Israel for an infection.
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