Israel's latest strikes kill 12 in Gaza, including police officers
Israeli air strikes have killed at least a dozen people in Gaza over the past two days, local health officials said on Wednesday, as the military continued carrying out near-daily attacks despite a months-old ceasefire with Hamas.
On Wednesday, three members of the same family were killed in central Gaza, according to officials at Al Aqsa Hospital.
On Tuesday, a woman and six police officers were among those killed in an air strike on a police station in the densely populated Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza, hospital officials said. A man was killed in the bombing of a tent camp in Khan Younis in the south, according to Nasser Hospital officials, while Israeli forces shot dead a child in the Muwasi area outside the southern city of Rafah, hospital officials said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the strikes in central and southern Gaza. In a statement on the attack in Jabaliya, it said four of the dead police officers were Hamas militants, but provided no evidence to support its claim or explain how those killed had been 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 governed Gaza for years, operates both an armed wing and civilian police and security services overseen by its Interior Ministry. Throughout the war, Israel has repeatedly targeted local police, including officers guarding humanitarian aid convoys.
The Israeli military has said it considers police stations legitimate military targets if they are "being used to advance military activities, or if those present are military operatives involved in advancing terrorist activities".
It did not specify what military activities it believed were taking place at the Jabaliya police station, nor did it provide evidence that attacks were being planned there. Hamas says its police force is responsible for maintaining law and order.
Israeli attacks on Gaza's police have drawn condemnation from the UN 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 statement issued on June 3.
Ofer Guterman, a researcher at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, said Israel's targeting suggests it views parts of Hamas' policing apparatus as closely integrated with its military infrastructure through dual-role personnel and the use of police facilities for weapons storage, operations and logistics.
The fragile ceasefire reached in October was intended to halt the two-year war between Israel and Hamas.
Although the most intense fighting has subsided, at least 1,123 people have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire took effect, according to the territory's Health Ministry. The ministry, which operates under the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are generally regarded as reliable by UN agencies and independent experts. It does not distinguish between civilians and militants but says women and children account for the majority of those killed.
Militants have continued carrying out shooting attacks on Israeli troops, and Israel says its strikes are in response to those and other ceasefire violations. Five Israeli soldiers have been killed since the truce came into effect.
The war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage. Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has since killed more than 73,264 Palestinians, including those killed after the ceasefire took effect, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.