Israeli strike kills 11 people, including head of Gaza police, Palestinian officials say

By Ibrahim Dahman, Lucas Lilieholm, Tareq El Hilou, Eyad Kourdi and Sana Noor Haq, CNN

(CNN) — 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, aged 50 and a father-of-four, 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 military said it killed Shahwan, the deputy, on Thursday. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that Shahwan was a “terrorist” who was “responsible for developing intelligence assessments in coordination with elements of Hamas’ military wing” in Gaza. The IDF did not acknowledge Salah’s killing in its 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.

‘We’ve grown up with bombings’

Men, women and children tried to recover survivors from the wreckage of Israel’s bombardment on Thursday.

CNN footage from the aftermath showed residents holding white bags filled with the dismembered body parts of those killed. Blood splatters can be seen marking the ground.

“We heard a whistling sound, and we covered the baby with our bodies. The entire tent turned into chaos. We didn’t know where the strikes were coming from,” Jana Abdel Aal, an 11-year-old girl, told CNN.

“The entire area was filled with smoke,” she said. “The Israelis didn’t warn us. We were sitting and suddenly heard whistling and then, boom — the tent was destroyed. No warning, nothing.”

Jana told CNN she struggled to protect her two-day-old baby brother, Sanad, from clouds of dust, adding that he “was moments away from dying.”

“He was on the verge of suffocating. We took him outside, away from the area, and he finally breathed some air,” added Jana.

“For 11 years, we’ve known nothing but humiliation. We’ve grown up with bombings, injuries, and burials,” she said. “I don’t expect anything for the future. I have no hope left – not in life, not in anything.”

The area was “full of civilians, including displaced children” when it was hit, according to the head of rescue operations at Gaza’s Civil Defense.

“Almost nothing remained of the building – it was completely destroyed,” Aqil Al-Hajjaj told CNN on Thursday. “(The building) was hit by six or seven missiles as if it were encircled by fire.”

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.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

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CNN’s Tamar Michaelis contributed reporting.