Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 11 people in a tent camp housing displaced families, medics said.
They said the 11 included women and children in the Al-Mawasi district, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians earlier in the war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling militant group Hamas, now in its 15th month.
The director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his assistant, Hussam Shahwan, were killed in the attack, according to the Gaza Interior Ministry.
“By committing the crime of killing the director general of the police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in (the enclave) and deepening the human suffering of the citizens,” added a statement.
The Israeli military said it had carried out an intelligence-based strike in Al-Mawasi, west of the town of Khan Younis, and had eliminated Shahwan, naming him the head of Hamas’ security forces in southern Gaza. It did not mention Salah’s death.
Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 Palestinians, including six at the Interior Ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in northern Gaza’s Jabalia refugee camp, Shati (Beach) camp and central Gaza’s Maghazi camp.
The Israeli military said it had targeted Hamas militants who intelligence indicated were operating from a command and control center “embedded inside the Khan Younis commune building in the Humanitarian Zone.”
Asked about the 37 reported deaths, an Israeli army spokesman said it followed international law in waging war in Gaza and that “possible precautions were taken to mitigate civilian harm”.
The military has accused Gaza militants of using built-up residential areas for cover. Hamas denies this.
Hamas’s smaller ally Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets at the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holi near Gaza on Thursday. The Israeli army said it intercepted a shell in the area that had passed through southern Gaza.
Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents have been displaced, and much of the tiny heavily built-up coastal enclave is in ruins.
The war was sparked by a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostages in Gaza, according to Israeli data. Hamas’s ally Islamic Jihad also took part in the attack.
The hostage tried to take his own life
An Israeli hostage held by Gaza’s Islamic Jihad militant group has attempted suicide, the movement’s armed wing spokesman said in a video posted on Telegram on Thursday.
One of the group’s medical teams intervened and prevented him from dying, the Al-Quds Brigades spokesman added, without elaborating on the hostage’s identity or current condition.
Israeli authorities did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Islamic Jihad spokesman Abu Hamza said the hostage had attempted to take his life three days ago because of his psychological state, without elaborating.
Abu Hamza accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government of imposing new conditions that had led to the “failure and delay” of negotiations to release the hostage.
The man was scheduled to be released with other hostages under the terms of the first phase of an exchange deal with Israel, Abu Hamza said. He did not specify when the young man was scheduled to be released or under what agreement.
Efforts by Arab mediators, backed by the United States, have so far failed to broker a ceasefire in Gaza under a possible deal that would also see the release of Israeli hostages in exchange for the freedom of Palestinians in Israeli jails.
The armed wing of Islamic Jihad had issued a decision to strengthen security measures for the hostages, Abu Hamza added.
In July, Islamic Jihad’s armed wing said several Israeli hostages had tried to kill themselves after it began treating them the same way Israel treats Palestinian prisoners.
“We will continue to treat Israeli hostages the same way Israel treats our prisoners,” Abu Hamza said at the time. Israel has denied allegations that it mistreats Palestinian prisoners.
