Hamas says police chief, deputy killed in airstrike on Gaza humanitarian zone

IDF confirms strike on aide Hussam Shahwan, accusing him of terrorizing Gazans and planning attacks on Israel; rocket fired at Israeli border town after Katz vows to step up strikes

Children walk amid scattered debris of tents on January 2, 2025, following an overnight Israeli strike on a tent camp near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (BASHAR TALEB / AFP)
Children walk amid scattered debris of tents on January 2, 2025, following an overnight Israeli strike on a tent camp near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (BASHAR TALEB / AFP)

An Israeli airstrike on a central Gaza tent camp killed Hamas’s chief of police in the enclave along with his deputy and several others, including children, the Hamas terror group said Thursday.

Police chief Mahmoud Salah and his deputy Hussam Shahwan were killed in a strike in the al-Mawasi area, inside the IDF-designated humanitarian zone west of Khan Younis, Hamas said. Medics said 11 people were killed in the strike.

The Israeli military confirmed killing Shahwan, accusing him of “hiding under the protection of the civilian population in the humanitarian zone in Khan Younis.” It did not mention Salah.

The Israel Defense Forces identified Shahwan as having served as Hamas’s head of internal security, and said he was responsible for “severely violating the human rights” of Gazan civilians, including “violent interrogations,” as well as taking part in planning attacks against Israeli troops.

The IDF said it took steps ahead of the strike to reduce the harm to civilians, accusing Hamas of “cruelly exploiting civilian shelters, civilian buildings and the civilian population as human shields.”

In a statement, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry condemned the killing of the two police officers, saying “they were performing their humanitarian and national duty in serving our people.”

“By committing the assassination, the occupation continues to spread chaos in the Strip and deepen the human suffering of citizens,” the ministry said, adding that “the police force is a civil protection force that works to provide services to citizens.” The ministry said Salah spent 30 years in the police and was appointed its chief six years ago.

A woman walks amid scattered debris of tents on January 2, 2025, following an overnight Israeli strike on a tent camp near Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (BASHAR TALEB / AFP)

Medics in the Hamas-ruled enclave claimed that 11 people were killed in the strike, including women and children, and that 15 others were wounded.

“Eleven people were martyred, including three children and two women, and 15 were injured after the occupation aircraft bombed a tent housing displaced people in the Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis city in the southern Gaza Strip,” Gaza’s civil defense agency said in a statement.

Also on Thursday, the IDF said that the Israeli Air Force had struck a command center run by Hamas operatives inside the Khan Younis municipality building, within the boundaries of the humanitarian zone.

Medics told Reuters that six people were killed in the strike.

The IDF said that the command center was used to “plan and execute acts of terrorism against IDF forces and the State of Israel.”

It said that many steps were taken before the strike to mitigate harm to civilians including using precise munitions, aerial observations and other intelligence gathering.

“The Hamas terror group systematically violates international law, while viciously using the cover of civilian shelters, civilian buildings and the civilian population as a human shield while carrying out terror activities,” the IDF said.

Defense Minister Israel Katz on Wednesday threatened Hamas with intensified attacks if it “does not soon allow the release of the Israeli hostages from Gaza… and continues to fire at Israeli communities.”

The threat came after Hamas stepped up rocket fire at Israel from Gaza over the past week, following months with only sporadic missile fire from the Strip. At noon on Thursday, Hamas fired a rocket at Kibbutz Holit near the border, which the IDF said was intercepted.

At the stroke of midnight on New Year’s Day, Hamas fired rockets at the southern city of Netivot. On Saturday afternoon, Hamas fired two long-range rockets toward Jerusalem, after having not fired at the capital in over a year. The terror group has also targeted border towns near Gaza several times in recent days.

According to a July assessment by the IDF, some 1.9 million of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents were estimated to be living inside the humanitarian zone. The IDF has in the past carried out strikes in the area on sites it said Hamas was using for planning operations or to launch rockets against Israel or troops.

However, the IDF’s top jurist recently penned a letter to the Southern Command chief, Maj. Gen. Yaron Finkelman, stating that the army had not adequately assessed the size of the civilian population in the areas where it has operated throughout the Gaza Strip, Army Radio reported on Wednesday.

Troops of the 162nd Division operate in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, in a handout photo issued by the IDF on December 29, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

Military Advocate General Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi pointed to the IDF’s recent assessment that 3,000 civilians remained in the area of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, when the actual number was 14,000.

The incorrect IDF assessment has hampered the IDF’s ability to assess the scope of collateral damage in strikes on terror targets, she wrote, according to the report. It has also led to far less aid than needed being allowed into the area by the IDF.

An internal probe ordered by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi following receipt of the letter found that IDF strikes did not end up leading to an excess in civilian casualties and that enough aid had entered Beit Lahiya, Army Radio reported.

Nonetheless, Halevi directed an external panel to look into the concerns raised by Tomer-Yerushalmi.

In February 2024, Tomer-Yerushalmi issued a warning against “cases of unacceptable conduct that deviate from IDF values and protocols,” including “unjustified use of force.”

She said at the time that individual cases were being investigated, after which the Military Advocate General Corps would decide if criminal or disciplinary measures need to be taken.

An extensive report released last week by The New York Times claimed that the IDF significantly loosened its rules of engagement in the wake of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack, allowing strikes that endangered more civilians than had previously been tolerated for similar targets.

Responding to the article, the IDF confirmed that its rules of engagement had changed when the war broke out, but maintained that all practices remained consistent with international law.

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