Israel’s strikes kill dozen people in Gaza
Israeli airstrikes have killed at least a dozen people in Gaza over the past two days, local health officials said on Wednesday, as strikes continue almost daily despite a months-old ceasefire with Hamas.
On Wednesday, three members of a family were killed in central Gaza, Al Aqsa Hospital officials said. On Tuesday, a woman and six police officers were among those killed in an airstrike on a police station in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, hospital officials said.
A man died in the bombing of a tent camp in Khan Younis in the south, Nasser Hospital officials said. And Israeli forces shot and killed a child in the Muwasi area outside the southernmost city of Rafah, according to hospital officials. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes in central and southern Gaza. In a statement on the attack in Jabaliya, it claimed that four of the slain police officers were Hamas militants, without providing evidence on how those killed were involved in planning or carrying out attacks.
One of the officers, Col. Mohamad Marwan Salem, was a senior police commander and head of the Jabaliya police station, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said. Hamas, which ruled Gaza for years, maintains an armed wing as well as civilian police and security services that are overseen by its Interior Ministry. Throughout the war, Israel has targeted local police, including those guarding humanitarian aid convoys.
Israel’s military has claimed it considers police stations legitimate targets if they’re “being used to advance military activities, or if those present are military operatives involved in advancing terrorist activities.” It did not say what military activities it believed were taking place at the Jabaliya police station, nor did it provide evidence that attacks were being planned. Hamas says the police force is engaged in maintaining law and order. Israeli attacks on Gaza’s police have been condemned by the United Nations human rights office, which said last month that police personnel had been attacked at least a dozen times in 2026, including “during ordinary law enforcement operations, including directing traffic and patrolling streets and markets.”
“The pattern of attacks raises concerns that Israeli forces apply no distinction between police personnel and fighters belonging to armed groups in Gaza,” it said in a June 3 statement.
Guterman, a researcher at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel’s targeting suggests that it regards parts of Hamas’ policing apparatus as closely integrated with its military infrastructure, including through dual-role personnel and the use of facilities for weapons storage, operations and logistics. The fragile ceasefire deal in October attempted to halt a two-year-long war between Israel and Hamas.
