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Gaza Civil Defense said Thursday that at least 11 people, including the police chief of the Islamist movement Hamas, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the south of the Palestinian territory.
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January 2, 2025 – 5:09 p.m.
(Keystone-ATS) The same source said two other Israeli strikes later Thursday in other areas of Palestinian territory resulted in the deaths of 14 Palestinians. Strikes not commented on by Israel.
The Israeli army, however, confirmed that it had carried out a nighttime strike in the Khan Younes region in the south of the Gaza Strip, saying it targeted deputy police chief Hussam Shahwan because of his alleged role. in planning attacks against Israeli troops.
“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.
Philippe Lazzarini, head of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), condemned the strike.
“Another reminder that there is no humanitarian zone, much less a ‘safe zone’” in Gaza, he wrote on the social network X.
The Gaza Strip’s Interior Ministry, led by Hamas, also denounced the strike.
“Spread the chaos”
“By committing this assassination, the occupation continues to spread chaos in the Gaza Strip and aggravate the human suffering of citizens,” he said in a statement, specifying that Salah had spent 30 years in the forces. of police and that he had been appointed to lead them six years ago.
Hamas, for its part, said the strike was a continuation of Israel’s “genocidal war against defenseless civilians.”
A Gaza paramedic, Saleem Abou Soubha, described the scene: “We immediately went to the scene and found the injured lying on the ground, most of them children, as well as two female martyrs. Around 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.
Tens of thousands killed
Elsewhere in the Gaza Strip, Civil Defense reported that a strike on Jabalia in the north left at least 10 dead.
The Israeli army, whose forces have been carrying out a large operation in northern Gaza since early October, has not commented on this latest strike.
Four other people died in another raid, according to Civil Defense.
The attack of October 7, 2023 resulted in the death of 1,208 people, the majority civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli data and including hostages who died or were killed in captivity in Gaza.
At least 45,581 people were killed in the Israeli military campaign of reprisals in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to a latest report Wednesday from the Hamas Ministry of Health, whose data is considered reliable by the UN.
