Israel kills Hamas-led police official in Gaza: medics
Brigadier General Abdel Nasser al-Maqadma, head of the Hamas-led police force in the northern Gaza Strip, was killed in an Israeli airstrike, the Hamas-run interior ministry and medical officials said.
Makadma, one of at least five Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday, was also known as the governor of the northern Gaza Strip.
Medics said he was killed in the Sheikh Radwan area, north of Gaza City.
The Israeli army said he was also part of Hamas’ military wing.
Israel has killed dozens of members of the Hamas-led police force in recent months, including senior officials, and accuses many of them of being members of the Hamas armed wing that poses an imminent threat to Israel and its forces in the Gaza Strip.
Hamas said its attacks on Israel’s police force and headquarters were aimed at creating chaos and anarchy in the region and violating the US-brokered October ceasefire.
A Palestinian doctor was killed in the Nuseyrat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip in another Israeli attack on Saturday, medics said.
They added that a police officer injured in an Israeli airstrike last week died on Saturday.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incident.
Health officials said two people were killed in an Israeli airstrike in a house in Khan Younis, in the south of the region.
The Israeli army said the attack targeted a militant belonging to the Islamic Jihad group.
Later Saturday, an Israeli airstrike, also in Khan Younis, killed high school student Khaled al-Breim, bringing Saturday’s death toll to at least five.
Relatives said Breim was killed while trying to bring candy to distribute to relatives and friends who flocked to his family’s home to offer their congratulations as he had just graduated high school and was preparing for college.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the student’s death.
The latest deaths add to more than 1,180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed in Israeli attacks since a ceasefire reached between Israel and Hamas militants came into force in October, according to Gaza health officials.
Hamas generally does not disclose its losses.
The ceasefire stopped large-scale fighting but did not end Israel’s almost daily attacks.
During the same period, four Israeli soldiers were killed by militants in the Gaza Strip.
Mediators including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States are trying to advance US President Donald Trump’s plan to end the conflict in the Gaza Strip, calling for the disarmament of Hamas and the withdrawal of Israel, but there is little sign of progress in those efforts.
The war began when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage, according to Israeli records.
Gaza health officials say more than 73,000 Palestinians died in Israel’s subsequent offensive.
Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 percent of the tiny coastline, which was devastated by a two-year Israeli military offensive that followed a Hamas offensive into southern Israel in 2023.
Nearly all of the region’s two million people now live on a small strip of land, mostly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings, and face dire conditions under Hamas’ control.
