Gaza Civil Defense said Thursday that at least 11 people, including the police chief of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike.
“Eleven people were martyred, including three children and two women, and 15 were injured after the bombing of a tent sheltering displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area, west of the town of Khan Younes , in the south of the Gaza Strip,” Civil Defense said in a statement.
Among those killed were police chief Mahmoud Salah and his deputy, Hussam Shahwan, Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said.
The Interior Ministry of the Hamas-led Gaza Strip condemned the strike which caused the death of the two police chiefs, stressing that they were “accomplishing their humanitarian duty” in the service of their “people”. .
“By committing this assassination, the occupation continues to spread chaos in the Gaza Strip and aggravate the human suffering of citizens,” the ministry added in a statement, specifying that Salah had spent 30 years in the police force. and that he had been appointed to lead them six years ago.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli army declared that it was examining the facts.
A Gaza paramedic, Saleem Abou Soubha, described the scene of the strike: “We immediately went to the scene and found the injured lying on the ground, most of them children, as well as two female martyrs. About ten “Tents were damaged and fires were visible,” he said.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz threatened to intensify its strikes on Gaza if Hamas continued to fire rockets at Israel.
The resumption of rocket fire from Gaza into Israeli territory in recent days has caused little damage. The number of rockets fired from the Gaza Strip is significantly lower than it was at the start of the war triggered on October 7, 2023 by an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israeli territory.
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