An Israeli strike killed at least 11 Palestinians overnight, including the director general of Gaza police and a deputy, in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, local officials said Thursday.
Gaza’s interior ministry accused Israel of killing Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Salah and Maj. Gen. Hussam Shahwan, a member of the Police Command Council, to undermine law and order in the Palestinian territory.
“By committing the crime of assassinating the Director General of Police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the Strip and deepening the human suffering of citizens,” the ministry said in a Thursday statement.
The Israeli offensive since the Hamas-led October 7 attacks in 2023 has eroded law infrastructure in Gaza. The presence of heavily armed groups has also stifled relief efforts in a territory besieged by Israel’s sustained aid restrictions and severe hunger, disease and mass displacement. Palestinian police have played a key role in ensuring the safe delivery of humanitarian aid.
But human rights agencies have repeatedly warned that Israel’s sustained aid restrictions have strangled relief operations in the enclave, citing lengthy truck inspections, damaged roads, strikes on aid convoys and impeded access to the north.
In November, the United Nations warned of a “collapse of law and order” leading to dozens of trucks being looted at gunpoint. A few days later, the chief of the UN’s agency for Palestine refugees stressed that Israel, as the occupying power, must ensure that aid flows safely into Gaza.
Israel’s war in Gaza has erased entire families, decimated the health care system and reduced entire neighborhoods to debris. At least 45,581 Palestinians have been killed and more than 108,400 people injured, the Ministry of Health there reported on Thursday.
Al-Mawasi, a coastal region west of Rafah, previously designated by Israel as a “humanitarian area,” has repeatedly come under Israeli attacks. Thousands of displaced Palestinians have moved there in search of refuge, living for months in makeshift tents made of cloth and nylon.