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Israeli airstrikes have killed more than a dozen Gaza police officers in recent days, Gaza authorities said, intensifying a targeted campaign against Hamas-run security forces that has become one of the most contentious fault lines in negotiations over the territory’s postwar future.
The deadliest single incident occurred Sunday, when an Israeli airstrike struck a police vehicle traveling along the Salah al-Din route in the central town of Zawayda. The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said nine officers and personnel were killed, listing among the dead the police chief for the central governerate, Colonel Iyad Abu Yousef. The ministry described the strike as a “heinous crime” and accused Israel of pursuing “a policy aimed at continuing the war of genocide and deepening the humanitarian catastrophe in the Gaza Strip.” The Israeli military said the strike had targeted an armed Hamas cell planning an attack on its troops and put the death toll at six. Neither side immediately resolved the discrepancy.
On Tuesday, a further Israeli airstrike struck a vehicle in the western area of Khan Younis, killing at least three people including a child and wounding 12 others. There was no immediate Israeli military comment on that incident. A Hamas field commander, Mohammad Abu Shahla, was also killed Wednesday in a separate strike in Khan Younis, according to Hamas and local medics.
The pattern of strikes reflects a broader Israeli objective. Ismail al-Thawabta, director of the Hamas-run Gaza Government Media Office, said Israel had killed more than 2,800 Gaza police officers since the war began on October 7, 2023. Dozens more have been killed since the ceasefire that took effect last October, including at least ten since the United States and Israel launched their joint military campaign against Iran in late February. Hamas’s police force largely dissolved during the war as Israeli forces swept through Gaza and repeatedly struck security infrastructure, but officers have since re-emerged in streets and markets in areas outside Israeli military control, reasserting day-to-day governance functions including traffic direction, market patrols, and security in tent encampments.
To reduce further losses, al-Thawabta said the force had issued “operational orders and precautionary measures” involving the reorganization of personnel movements and deployments. He gave no further details.
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The status of Hamas’s roughly 10,000 police officers has emerged as a direct impediment to advancing Trump’s governance plan for Gaza. The plan, outlined in a 20-point framework, envisions Hamas disarming and surrendering governance to a National Committee for the Administration of Gaza operating under the auspices of a U.S.-led Board of Peace, with Israeli troops withdrawing as civilian administration is established. Hamas has insisted its police officers be incorporated into any future security structure. Israel has rejected any arrangement that includes personnel with Hamas affiliations.
Palestinian political analyst Reham Owda said the strikes carried a deliberate political signal. “These strikes aim to disrupt Hamas’ security efforts in the territory and convey a clear message that Israel will not accept any expanded security role for Hamas within Gaza,” she told Reuters. The timing — coinciding with both the Iran war and ongoing Cairo talks — has sharpened concerns among mediators about the ceasefire’s durability.
Three sources told Reuters that envoys from Trump’s Board of Peace have met Hamas representatives in Cairo in an effort to shore up the October agreement, which has come under serious strain. A Palestinian official with knowledge of the talks said Hamas believed Israel was exploiting the Iran conflict to step back from its obligations under the Trump plan. Israel rejected that characterization.
Gaza’s health authorities say at least 72,249 people have been killed since October 7, 2023, including 20,179 children, with more than 670 of those deaths occurring after the ceasefire took effect. Approximately half of those killed since the ceasefire have been women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, whose casualty records are considered broadly reliable by United Nations agencies and independent experts. The ministry does not distinguish between civilian and militant deaths. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza since the ceasefire began, the Israeli military said.
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Israeli forces also shot and killed a 17-year-old Palestinian and wounded another in the Israeli-occupied West Bank this week, with the military saying its troops fired on three individuals who hurled stones at Israeli vehicles near the town of Salfit. Rights groups have separately reported that Israeli settlers have killed at least five Palestinians in the West Bank since the Iran war began, with military roadblocks impeding ambulance access to victims.
On the ground in Gaza City, residents described the police presence as essential to daily life. “Without the police, we would be ruined,” said Abdallah al-Araisha, a Palestinian living in a tent encampment, describing officers helping to contain crime and protect displaced residents across a territory where more than two million people remain internally displaced.
The Israeli military has maintained that its strikes in Gaza are responses to militant threats or ceasefire violations and has not commented on the cumulative toll among police personnel. Talks in Cairo on the ceasefire’s next phase, including Hamas disarmament timelines, were continuing as of Wednesday with no agreement announced.
