Khalil al-Hayya denied reports Thursday morning that his son Azzam was killed in an Israeli strike, saying instead that he was seriously wounded during the attack.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, al-Hayya addressed the reports that circulated the previous night, stating that his son had not been killed in the strike in Gaza City.

“What we heard is that in the group that was randomly attacked, so far Hamza al-Sharbati was killed, and my son Azzam and another group of people were seriously wounded,” al-Hayya said in the interview.

According to earlier reports, the strike took place in the al-Daraj neighborhood in eastern Gaza City during operational activity by IDF forces in the area. Palestinian sources had initially confirmed Azzam’s death, but al-Hayya now claims those reports were incorrect and that his son survived with severe injuries.

Al-Hayya, who serves as head of Hamas’s political bureau in the Gaza Strip, is considered one of the central figures in the organization’s leadership. He is currently in the final stage of a leadership contest within Hamas, facing Khaled Mashal ahead of internal elections expected in the near future.

This is not the first time al-Hayya’s family has been affected during the war. Another of his sons was previously killed in an Israeli strike in Qatar earlier in the conflict.

{Matzav.com}