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North Gaza police chief killed
An Israeli airstrike on Saturday killed the head of the Hamas-led police force in the northern Gaza Strip, Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser Al-Maqadma, in the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City, according to the Hamas-run interior ministry and medics.
The strike also formed part of a wider set of incidents reported by medics, including an Israeli airstrike that killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza and another that wounded a police officer who later died from his injuries.
In a separate account, Shafaq News said an Israeli drone strike targeted a bicycle near Al-Ghazali Junction in northern Sheikh Radwan, killing the 54-year-old officer and injuring several others.
Gaza health authorities put the broader toll since the October ceasefire at more than 1,180 Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks, with the same reporting saying four Israeli soldiers were killed by militants in Gaza during the same period.
Hamas and Israel trade blame
Hamas rejected Israel’s claims that it was targeting the police force, accusing Israel of deliberately targeting the civilian police force to spread chaos and undermine public order in the enclave, and describing the attacks as violations of the U.S.-brokered ceasefire reached in October.
The Times of Israel reported that Israel said Maqadma was also part of Hamasâs military wing and that Israel has killed dozens of members of the Hamas-led police force, including senior officials, accusing them of posing imminent threats to Israeli forces inside Gaza.
In the same reporting stream, Hamas said Israeli attacks on the police force and its headquarters were intended to sow chaos and anarchy in the enclave and violate the US-brokered October ceasefire.
The dispute over the police killings sits alongside continued strikes described by Reuters-sourced reporting, which said the truce halted full-scale fighting but has not ended near-daily Israeli strikes.
Casualties, displacement, and talks
Beyond the police chief killing, the sources described additional deaths in Gaza on Saturday, including medics saying an Israeli airstrike killed Khaled Al-Breim, a high school student, in Khan Younis, and relatives saying Breim was killed as he sought to bring sweets to distribute to relatives and friends.
The reporting also tied the violence to the stalled diplomatic track, saying mediators including Egypt, Qatar, Türkiye and the United States were trying to advance U.S. President Donald Trumpâs proposal to end the conflict, which includes Hamas disarmament and Israeli military withdrawals.
In one account, Gaza health ministry figures were cited as saying more than 1,180 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire came into effect, while nearly all of Gaza’s two million residents have been displaced and are living in makeshift shelters or damaged buildings.
A separate tally from Shafaq News said hospitals across the enclave received six bodies and 37 wounded people over the past 48 hours and placed the death toll since the Oct. 11 ceasefire at 1,191 people, with 3,853 others wounded, raising the overall toll since the war began on Oct. 7, 2023 to 73,317 Palestinians killed and 173,961 injured.
