Katz Vows Hamas Leader Al Hayya Will Meet Haniyeh in Hell
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a post on X that Hamas leader Khalil al Hayya will follow Ismail Haniyeh, whom he said was sent to hell. The post also accused Turkey’s president of hosting Hamas.
Israel Katz wrote on October 11 that Israel had eliminated Hamas’s leaders in Gaza and that al Hayya’s turn would also come, according to reports of the post. He said al Hayya would be sent to meet Haniyeh and his associates in the depths of hell. No Israeli operation against al Hayya has been announced.
A message aimed at Ankara
The same post attacked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, saying he continues to roll out the red carpet for Hamas’s murderers and rapists. According to the account of the post, it included a Hebrew infographic listing meetings between Turkish officials and Hamas over several years. Katz framed Turkey, together with the Muslim Brotherhood, as backing Hamas against Israel and other regional states. Those are his claims, and the reports reviewed do not independently verify the infographic.
Who al Hayya is
Khalil al Hayya was born in Gaza in 1960 and has been part of Hamas since its founding in 1987. He is Hamas’s exiled Gaza leader and its main negotiator, one of five members of the temporary leadership council formed in late 2024, and he works mainly from Qatar, which hosts Hamas’s mediation activity, according to Al Jazeera.
The Doha strike of 2025
Al Hayya was among the senior Hamas figures targeted when Israel struck a residential complex in central Doha on September 9, 2025. Six people were killed: five Hamas members, including al Hayya’s son Humam and the director of his office, and a Qatari security officer. Hamas said the attack did not eliminate its negotiating delegation or its senior leadership. An earlier strike in 2014 killed another of his sons.
The Haniyeh comparison
Israel killed Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, in Tehran in 2024, and Katz drew that comparison directly. Public threats from Israeli ministers against named Hamas figures are not new, and they do not by themselves signal an imminent strike. What the post does show is the government’s message that Hamas leaders abroad are not outside its reach, and that Turkey is now part of that message.
Neither Hamas nor Turkey’s government had published a response in the reports reviewed.
