Israel's latest strikes kill a dozen people in Gaza including police officers
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Israeli airstrikes have killed at least a dozen people in Gaza over the past two days, local health officials said Wednesday, as strikes continue almost daily despite a months-old ceasefire with Hamas.
On Wednesday, three members of a family were killed in central Gaza, Al Aqsa Hospital officials said.
On Tuesday, woman and six police officers were among those killed in an airstrike on a police station in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, hospital officials said. A man died in the bombing of a tent camp in Khan Younis in the south, Nasser Hospital officials said. And Israeli forces shot and killed a child in the Muwasi area outside the southernmost city of Rafah, according to hospital officials.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes in central and southern Gaza. In a statement on the attack in Jabaliya, it claimed that four of the slain police officers were Hamas militants, without providing evidence on how those killed were involved in planning or carrying out attacks.
One of the officers, Col. Mohamad Marwan Salem, was a senior police commander and head of the Jabaliya police station, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said.
Hamas, which ruled Gaza for years, maintains an armed wing as well as civilian police and security services that are overseen by its Interior Ministry. Throughout the war, Israel has targeted local police, including those guarding humanitarian aid convoys.
Israel's military has claimed it considers police stations legitimate targets if they're “being used to advance military activities, or if those present are military operatives involved in advancing terrorist activities.”
It did not say what military activities it believed were taking place at the Jabaliya police station, nor did it provide evidence that attacks were being planned. Hamas says the police force is engaged in maintaining law and order.
Israeli attacks on Gaza’s police have been condemned by the United Nations human rights office, which said last month that police personnel had been attacked at least a dozen times in 2026, including “during ordinary law enforcement operations, including directing traffic and patrolling streets and markets.”
“The pattern of attacks raises concerns that Israeli forces apply no distinction between police personnel and fighters belonging to armed groups in Gaza,” it said in a June 3 statement.
Ofer Guterman, a researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel’s targeting suggests that it regards parts of Hamas' policing apparatus as closely integrated with its military infrastructure, including through dual-role personnel and the use of facilities for weapons storage, operations and logistics.
The fragile ceasefire deal in October attempted to halt a two-year-long war between Israel and Hamas.
The heaviest fighting has subsided but at least 1,123 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory’s Health Ministry. The ministry, which has been part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts. It does not give a breakdown of civilians and militants but says women and children make up most of the dead.
Militants have carried out shooting attacks on troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to that and other violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the ceasefire.
The war began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killed around 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed since the ceasefire, Gaza’s Health Ministry said. ___
Magdy reported from Cairo and Metz from Ramallah, West Bank.
