Israeli strikes kills at least 16 in southern Gaza, medics say

GAZA (Agencies): An Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 Palestinians in a tent encampment sheltering displaced families in the southern Gaza Strip early on Thursday, medics said.

They said the 10 people, including women and children, were killed in a tent in al-Mawasi, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians earlier in the war between Israel and Gaza’s ruling Hamas militant group, now in its 15th month. Another 15 people were injured.

The director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, were killed in the strike, the Gaza interior ministry said.

“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.

The Israeli military said it had conducted an intelligence-based strike in al-Mawasi, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and killed Shahwan, calling him the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza. It made no mention of Salah’s death.

Reuters later reported, citing medics, that six people were killed in an Israeli airstrike at the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza strip.

Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to Gaza’s health ministry. Most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny, heavily built-up coastal territory is in ruins.

The war was triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.