Director general of Gaza police among 11 reportedly killed in al-Mawasi encampment, designated a civilian safe zone. Israeli airstrikes killed at least 43 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 11 people in the sprawling al-Mawasi tent encampment designated as a humanitarian safe zone for civilians.
Among those killed in the al-Mawasi strike was the director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his deputy, Hussam Shahwan, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry. “By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos … and deepening the human suffering of citizens,” Hamas added in a statement.
The Israeli military said it had conducted the strike on the al-Mawasi encampment, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, calling him the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza, but made no mention of Salah’s death. Medics said the 11 people killed included women and children.
The latest strikes in Israel’s 15-month war in Gaza, which has led to more than 45,500 Palestinian deaths, came as negotiations for a ceasefire-for-hostages deal appeared to have stalled again, despite pressure to conclude an agreement before Donald Trump is sworn in as US president on 20 January. The war was triggered by Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on southern Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad said in a video message on Thursday that an Israeli hostage had tried to take his own life, without giving further details on the hostage’s identity or current condition. In a statement by the group on the Telegram messaging service, a spokesperson for al-Quds Brigades, the group’s armed wing, said one of the group’s medical teams had intervened and prevented him from dying.
