Palestinians inspect the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike Thursday that left a large bomb crater in Khan Younis in southern Gaza. The attack, which medics said killed six people at the headquarters of the territory’s interior ministry, was among a series of strikes starting before dawn that killed at least 50 people across Gaza. Photo by Haitham Imad/EPA-EFE
Israel’s military said Thursday that it had killed Gaza’s police chief in an airstrike on the enclave’s Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone outside the southern city of Khan Younis.
Hassam Shahwan, head of Hamas’ Internal Security Forces was “eliminated by the Israeli Air Force in an intelligence-based strike,” Israel Defense Forces said in a post on X, saying he provided vital information used to mount attacks on Israeli troops, enforced internal discipline within Hamas and terrorized the civilian population. Advertisement
“Shahwan was responsible for developing intelligence assessments in coordination with elements of Hamas’ military wing in attacks on the IDF in Gaza. Hamas Internal Security Forces have conducted violent interrogations of the Gazan population, violating human rights and suppressing dissent within the organization,” the IDF wrote.
The airstrike killed at least 10 other Palestinians in Al-Mawasi, including three children and two women, amid ongoing attacks across Gaza that killed 40 others.
The BBC reported that the airstrike on the Al-Mawasi “safe zone” also killed Shahwan’s deputy, Mahmoud Salah, with the Hamas-run Interior Ministry calling it an assassination of public servants “performing their humanitarian and national duty.” Advertisement
Insisting the police force was a “civilain protection agency,” the ministry alleged that the killings of Shahwan and Salah would only serve to spread chaos and exacerbate the suffering of the population of Gaza.
Medics said six people were later killed in an IDF airstrike on the ministry’s headquarters in Khan Younis.
At least 10 people were killed in Jabalia in northern Gaza, four in the nearby Shati refugee camp and 12 at two intersections in Gaza City, Palestinian media reported.
The WAFA news agency said four people were killed in central Gaza in Deir al-Balah and an unspecified number had been killed inside the Maghazi refugee camp, two miles to the west of the city.
Figures published Thursday on the social media account of Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry show the number of people killed since the start of the full-blown conflict following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, rose to 45,581 with another 108,438 injured.
