Hamas issued an official announcement on Friday night declaring that Khalil al-Hayya, one of the group’s senior leaders who was reported to have been targeted in Israel’s strike in Qatar earlier this week, survived the attack.
According to a statement from the terror group, cited by Channel 13 News, al-Hayya “carried out the funeral prayer for his martyred son who was killed in the strike and for those killed in the assassination attempt, under special security arrangements.”
Despite the claim, Hamas provided no pictures or additional evidence to prove his presence.
On Thursday, the organization released photographs from the funeral held in Doha for those killed in the Israeli strike. The images featured Hamas leaders Osama Hamdan and Izzat al-Rishq, though al-Hayya himself did not appear in any of them.
Earlier reports indicated that al-Rishq had been inside the building struck in Doha. Al-Rishq, who sits on Hamas’s diplomatic bureau and oversees its Arab and Islamic relations office, has long operated out of Jordan, Syria, and later Qatar.
Al-Hayya currently serves as Hamas’s acting chief in Gaza following the killing of Yahya Sinwar. Though based in Qatar, he previously worked for many years inside Gaza. His involvement with Hamas began during the First Intifada. He was jailed in Israel during the 1990s and has survived multiple assassination attempts over the years.
{Matzav.com}
Hamas claims a lot of things. They have a perfect track record of lying 100 percent of the time. Everything they say is a lie.