Israeli fire kills nine in Gaza, including a 10-year-old

CAIRO: An Israeli strike and gunfire killed at least nine Palestinians, including a 10-year-old boy and a senior Hamas police officer, in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Gazan health and police officials said. The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,100 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel ⁠and Hamas took effect, according to health officials in the enclave. The truce halted major fighting but ⁠has failed to stop sporadic violence. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period. Medics said Muataz Abu Shaar, 10, was shot on Tuesday by Israeli gunfire in Rafah, southern Gaza.
In Jabalia, ‌in the north of the enclave, an Israeli air strike on ​a post of the ⁠Hamas-led police force killed at least seven people, including a woman, and wounded ​several other people, medics and police officials said. The interior ministry said in a statement that the dead included the head of the Jabalia police force, Colonel Mohammad Marwan Salem, along with other officers.
Israel has ​stepped up its attacks against Hamas security men and police posts, killing dozens of them since October, according to police sources.
Israel wants Hamas to cede control of Gaza and disarm, and while the group said it was ready to relinquish power, it has always resisted calls to lay down arms.
In Khan Yunis, in the south, an Israeli air strike killed a 36-year-old man and left three people wounded, medics said. The Israeli military said it struck ​a Hamas militant. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on either of the Rafah or Jabalia incidents.
The latest violence comes as Hamas leaders visited Cairo for further talks on implementing the second phase of US President Donald Trump's Gaza peace plan. The discussions include Hamas disarmament and Israeli army withdrawals, according to sources ​close to the talks, who said little progress had been made in ⁠the past weeks ​towards reaching a broad agreement to end the conflict.
Hamas says Israel's violations of the ceasefire are a key obstacle to implementing the second phase of Trump's plan. Nearly all of Gaza's 2 million people, most of whom have been displaced several times, now live on a tiny strip of land along the coast, mainly ​in makeshift tents or damaged buildings.
Meanwhile, a United Nations ⁠official has said Hamas was disrupting aid distribution in the Gaza ​Strip, placing further hardship ​on its civilians already grappling with the humanitarian crisis in the war-shattered enclave. In a statement, the UN's humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories said humanitarian workers had to halt activity after armed men entered a food distribution point in northern ⁠Gaza and assaulted two truck drivers in a World Food Programme ⁠warehouse.
'These incidents are not isolated. They are completely unacceptable and reflect an increasingly dangerous pattern of intimidation, violence and obstruction, including smuggling attempts, targeting and abusing humanitarian operations,' said UN ‌Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East ​Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov. 'They ⁠are placing humanitarian workers at risk, disrupting the delivery of ​life-saving assistance, and further constraining the ‌ability of humanitarian organisations to operate at a time when civilians across Gaza continue to face ​immense and pressing humanitarian conditions,' Alakbarov said.
Hamas on Monday denied the allegations. Its media office said the police forces involved were on a law enforcement operation after receiving reports of smuggled cigarettes and mobile phone components concealed inside aid parcels. 'The incident ‌at the World Food Programme (WFP) food distribution centre in the Abu Rashid ​area of Jabalia Refugee Camp was neither a 'raid,' an 'attack,' nor an 'obstruction' of humanitarian work, ​as ‌falsely ⁠claimed,' Hamas said. — Reuters