Israeli air strikes killed at least 54 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip yesterday, including 11 people in a tent encampment sheltering 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 Hamas, now in its 15th month.
The director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, were killed in the strike, according to the Hamas-run 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.
Other Israeli air strikes killed at least 43 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in north Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp, the Shati (Beach) camp and central Gaza’s Maghazi camp.
“As the year begins, we got reports of yet another attack on Al Mawasi with dozens of people killed, 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.
“Everyday without a ceasefire will bring more tragedy.”
Asked about yesterday’s reported death toll, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said it followed international law in waging the war in Gaza and that it took “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.
Later, separate Israeli air strikes killed at least four people on Jala Street in downtown Gaza City and two in its Zeitoun district, medics said.
Hamas’ smaller ally Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets into the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holit near Gaza yesterday.
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