In another day of deadly violence in the stricken enclave of Gaza after over a year of war, 10 people are said to have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in a humanitarian zone
Three children and two high-ranking Hamas-run police force officers were said to have been killed today in an Israeli attack on a humanitarian zone in war-torn Gaza.
The early airstrike hit a tent – claiming the lives of ten people, a hospital said. Elsewhere, another Israeli attack killed at least eight Palestinians in the central Gaza strip on Thursday. The dead were members of local committees that help secure aid convoys, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital which received the bodies.
The first hit struck in al-Mawasi, a strip of land on the western coast of the stricken enclave which Israel has declared as a humanitarian zone. It killed three children, three women, and four men, according to the Nasser Hospital which received the bodies. Some reports put the death toll from the attack at 11.
Among those killed were Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Salah, general director of the Gaza police, and his deputy, Brig. Gen. Hossam Shahwan, according to hospital records. The Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry hit out at what it described as an assassination of the director general of police in Gaza.
Israel’s military said on social media platform X: “The Head of Hamas Internal Security Forces in southern Gaza, the terrorist Hassam Shahwan, was eliminated by the IAF in an intelligence-based strike in the Humanitarian Area in Khan Yunis. Shahwan was responsible for developing intelligence assessments in coordination with elements of Hamas’ military wing in attacks on the IDF in Gaza. The Hamas Internal Security Forces have conducted violent interrogations of the Gazan population, violating human rights and suppressing dissent within the organization.”
The Hamas-run government had a police force numbering tens of thousands that maintained a high degree of public security before the war – while also violently suppressing dissent. But the police have largely vanished from streets in many areas after being targeted by Israel, contributing to the breakdown of law and order hindering delivery of desperately-needed humanitarian aid.
But residents say plainclothes Hamas security men still patrol much of the territory, and the group has faced no significant internal challenge nearly 15 months into the war sparked by its October 7 attack on Israel which killed about 1,200. Israel’s offensive has killed over 45,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials.
