GAZA, November 1 (Aalimi Nation) – Israeli strikes killed at least eight Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, including five police officers, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Interior Ministry and local medical sources, in the latest violence to test a roughly year-old US-brokered ceasefire.
The Interior Ministry said five police officers were killed in a drone strike in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, and that they were carrying out routine duties when they were hit. Several other people were wounded, according to Palestinian reports.
In a separate strike in the Rimal area of Gaza City in the north, at least three people were killed, among them a four-year-old boy, according to medical sources at al-Shifa Hospital. One more person died of wounds sustained in an earlier attack, the sources said. Local reports did not fully reconcile all the figures with the overall total of eight, and the numbers could change as hospitals update their counts.
The Israeli military said it struck several militants in Khan Younis and, in a statement to a news agency, described its target in southern Gaza as "a terrorist". It gave no further details and had not commented on the Gaza City strike at the time of the reports.
Hamas condemned the attacks. In a statement on Sunday it described the strike on police as a "horrific massacre" and a "deliberate war crime", and said targeting police was meant to obstruct recovery efforts and undermine stability in the territory. These characterisations are Hamas's own and have not been independently verified.
Israel says Hamas has been rearming and carrying out attacks in violation of the ceasefire, and it has stepped up strikes on the group in recent weeks. Hamas denies trying to carry out attacks or rebuild its arsenal, and accuses Israel of undermining the peace deal.
The truce was meant to open the way for the eventual reconstruction of Gaza, but little progress has been made, according to reports from the region. Negotiators have not agreed on the terms under which Hamas would disarm or Israel would withdraw its troops. Israel controls about two-thirds of the territory and has ordered residents out of those areas. Nearly all of Gaza's more than two million people are living in the remaining third, mostly in tents and damaged buildings, under Hamas control.
Palestinian health officials say at least 1,500 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since the ceasefire took effect. Israel says four of its soldiers have been killed over the same period. These figures come from the respective authorities and cannot be independently confirmed.
The Gaza Ministry of Health says at least 74,594 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its offensive in October 2023. That offensive followed the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed, according to Israeli figures.
