Fresh Israeli airstrikes killed at least 68 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including at a tent camp where the head of the enclave’s Hamas-controlled police force, his deputy and nine displaced people died, Gaza authorities said.
The attack occurred in the Al-Mawasi district, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians earlier in the 14-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza.
he director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, who were checking on residents of the camp, were killed in the strike, according to the Gaza interior ministry.
“By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the (enclave) and deepening the human suffering of citizens,” it added in a statement.
The Israeli military said it had conducted an intelligence-based strike in Al-Mawasi, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, saying he led Hamas forces in south Gaza.
“As the year begins, we got … another reminder that there is no humanitarian zone, let alone a safe zone” in Gaza, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said in a post on X.
Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny, heavily built-up coastal territory is in ruins.
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