Hamas police chief among 11 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza, medics say 6 hours ago David Gritten BBC News The chief of Gaza’s Hamas-run police force and his deputy have been killed in an Israeli strike on a tent camp sheltering displaced families.
There has been increased lawlessness in Gaza since Israel began targeting police officers last year, citing their role in Hamas governance.
Later, another six people were killed in an Israeli air strike at the Gaza interior ministry’s headquarters in Khan Younis, medics said.
Palestinian media reported that at least 30 people were killed in Israeli strikes elsewhere in Gaza on Thursday.
More than 45,580 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
According to medics, the Israeli strike on Gaza killed 11 people, including the head of the Hamas police.
half an hour ago.
David Gritten.
NBC News.
An Israeli strike on a tent camp housing displaced families in Gaza has killed the head of the Hamas-run police force and his deputy.
Mahmoud Salah and Hussam Shahwan were “performing their humanitarian and national duty” when they were “assassinated,” according to the interior ministry run by Hamas.
The overnight assault in al-Mawasi, close to the southern city of Khan Younis, also claimed the lives of nine other people, including two women and three children, according to medical officials.
The Israeli military acknowledged that it had struck Shahwan, claiming that the “terrorist” had assisted Hamas’s military wing in organizing attacks against Israeli forces in Gaza.
The military said it intercepted a projectile fired from the southern part of Gaza, while other Israeli strikes across the territory on Thursday reportedly killed over 30 people.
By killing Salah and Shahwan, Israel was charged by the Gaza interior ministry with “spreading chaos” and “deepening the human suffering” in the region. It maintained that the police were a “civilian protection agency” that offered assistance to Palestinian citizens.
Since Israel started attacking police officers in Gaza last year, claiming they participate in Hamas governance, there has been a rise in lawlessness in the territory.
“The police force violated human rights and suppressed dissent by conducting violent interrogations of the Gazan population,” according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
It claimed that “Hassam Shahwan was in charge of creating intelligence assessments in coordination with elements of Hamas’s military wing in attacks on the IDF in the Gaza Strip.”.
The military also claimed that before the attack on al-Mawasi, it had taken “numerous steps” to reduce the possibility of hurting civilians.
Nine others were killed, including three brothers, ages seven, eleven, and thirteen.
While sleeping in their family’s tent, Ahmed, Mohammed, and Abdul Rahman al-Bardawil were struck by shrapnel, according to their father Walid.
“The sound of the explosion awakened me. My three sleeping sons didn’t pick up when I called them. “They were martyred right away,” he told the AFP news agency.
The boys’ bodies were seen on social media being taken in a tuk-tuk to a nearby hospital, along with their blood-stained mattresses inside a broken tent.
Around 1:00 (23:00 GMT Wednesday), Aida Zanoun, who was residing in a tent next door, reported hearing an Apache helicopter gunship in the sky.
“There was then a very powerful [explosion].”. It caused the neighborhood to tremble. According to reports, the shrapnel traveled up to 100 meters (330 feet), she told the Reuters news agency.
“We arrived to examine [the scene] in the morning. It is utter destruction and devastation. “What did the kids do to deserve to be struck?”.
In al-Mawasi, the IDF has designated a sandy strip of land along the coast as a “humanitarian zone” for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who have been displaced by its 14-month conflict with Hamas.
Despite this, it has attacked the area on multiple occasions, claiming that Hamas agents are hiding among civilians.
Medical personnel reported that an Israeli airstrike at the Gaza interior ministry’s headquarters in Khan Younis later killed six more people.
A strike against “Hamas terrorists who were operating in a control-and-command center that was embedded inside the Khan Younis municipality building” was announced by the IDF.
According to Palestinian media, Israeli strikes in other parts of Gaza on Thursday killed at least thirty people.
Four people were killed in the Shati refugee camp to the west, and ten were killed in the Israeli ground forces-besieged town of Jabalia in the north, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. According to the report, another twelve people perished at two intersections in the neighboring city of Gaza.
“Several people were killed in the nearby Maghazi refugee camp, and four people were killed in the central town of Deir al-Balah,” Wafa continued.
For displaced families, conditions in temporary camps have gotten worse due to recent cold and rainy weather.
Since Tuesday, sewage and rainwater have inundated more than 1,500 tents throughout Gaza, the Hamas-run Civil Defense agency said.
“After we awoke. We were astonished to discover that the rain had flooded [our tent], leaving us adrift in sewage,” Moataz Abu Hatab said on the Gaza Today program of BBC Arabic.
“Everything we owned, including our clothes, blankets, and mattresses, was gone. We have nothing left after the war, since everything we were able to purchase or acquire is now gone. “..”.
Following Hamas’ historic attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths and 251 hostage-takings, Israel began a campaign to eradicate the organization.
Since then, the Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has reported that over 45,580 people have been killed there.
