Jibril Rajoub - head of the Palestinian Authority’s Soccer Association and a senior Fatah official - called Khalil al-Hayya, the leader of the Hamas terror organization in the Gaza Strip, to offer condolences on the death of his son, Azzam, in an IDF strike in Gaza.
An Israeli official noted that "al-Hayya’s son was not a specific target for elimination, but he may have been present at a site targeted by IDF forces in Gaza earlier today." Another security official stated that the son of the Gaza Hamas leader was classified as "active" within the organization, adding that his presence in an area where other terrorists were eliminated supports this assessment.
Al-Hayya stated that his son Azzam was one “of the many sons of the Palestinian people sacrificing their lives for Palestine and the liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
Palestinian Arab channels report that this is the fourth of al-Hayya’s sons to be eliminated by Israeli security forces. Al-Hayya, who previously served as Yahya Sinwar’s deputy, was the target of an Israeli Air Force assassination attempt in Qatar last year, which he survived.
Rajoub, a senior member of Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah faction who served a prison sentence in Israel for security offenses, regularly incites against Israel, and has in the past said that Jews deserved the genocide inflicted on them by the Nazis.
In October 2011, he delivered a speech at a ceremony honoring the terrorists released by Israel in the Shalit deal, in which he praised Hamas for abducting the soldier and hailed the released prisoners as heroes.
In another incident, he declared that if the PA had a nuclear bomb, it would use it against Israel.
In 2018, Rajoub was suspended for a year from FIFA for inciting hatred and violence, after he called on soccer fans to target the Argentinian Soccer Association and burn jerseys and pictures of Messi when he was scheduled to play a friendly game in Israel.
He appealed the suspension from FIFA, but the appeal was dismissed by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
In August of 2024, Rajoub said in a TV interview that Sinwar, who orchestrated the October 7 massacre, is a “pragmatic, patriotic, and realistic man" and that Israel is attempting to demonize him.
In addition, Rajoub has repeatedly advocated for Israel to be excluded from international soccer events.