MULTIPLE Israeli air strikes across the Gaza Strip have killed dozens of Palestinians, including the head of the enclave’s police force and his deputy.
Medical sources told Al Jazeera on Thursday that 12 people, including several children, were killed in a strike on a tent encampment in the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi, a coastal area near the southern town of Khan Younis.
The attack also killed the chief of Gaza’s police force, Mahmud Salah, and his deputy, Hussam Shahwan. Salah was a veteran officer who had spent 30 years in the force, serving six years as its chief.
Gaza’s Interior Ministry condemned the killings, saying the two police officers had been “performing their humanitarian and national duty in serving our people”. It accused Israel of spreading “chaos” and deepening the “human suffering” in Gaza with the deadly strike.
A video clip from the aftermath of the attack, which also wounded about 15, showed people searching for survivors among burning tents, scattered debris, and washing lines where residents of the camp for displaced people had hung clothes to dry.
Reporting from Deir el-Balah in the centre of the Strip, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said the latest strikes marked “a very significant escalation”, with an additional attack on a gas station in the outskirts of the town killing nine people.
“The bodies were brought to al-Aqsa [Martyrs] Hospital. They were … shredded to pieces due to that brutal strike and we saw the mothers … crying over the loss they have endured today,” he said.
Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, three at al-Shati camp in the west of Gaza City, and at least seven in Jabalia refugee camp in the north.
Later on Thursday, separate Israeli airstrikes killed at least four people on Jala Street in downtown Gaza City and two in its Zeitoun district, medics said.
Another strike killed at least eight Palestinians in the central Gaza Strip. The dead were members of local committees that help secure aid convoys, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies.
Al Jazeera Arabic’s correspondents, citing medical sources, said a total of 63 people have been killed throughout the besieged enclave on Thursday, without providing more details.
