GAZA: An Israeli air strike on Saturday killed the head of the police force in the northern Gaza Strip, Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser Al-Maqadma, the Hamas-run interior ministry and medics said. Maqadma, known also as the governor of northern Gaza Strip, was killed by an Israeli air strike in the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City, they said.
Another Israeli strike killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip, medics said. They added that a police officer wounded by an Israeli air strike last week had died on Saturday. An Israeli air strike also killed two people in a house in Khan Yunis, in the south of the enclave, medics said, taking Saturday's death toll to at least four.
Hamas says Israeli attacks on the police force and its headquarters are intended to sow chaos and anarchy in the enclave and violate the US-brokered October ceasefire. The latest deaths add to a toll of more than 1,180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants took effect.
The truce halted full-scale fighting but has not ended near-daily Israeli strikes. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period. Mediators including Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye and the United States have been trying to advance US President Donald Trump's plan for ending the conflict in Gaza, which calls for Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawals, but there has been little sign of progress in the efforts. Nearly all of Gaza's 2 million people now live on a tiny strip of land, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings and facing dire conditions, under Hamas control. — Reuters
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