GAZA STRIP, PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES, JAN 2 (AFP/APP/DNA):Gaza’s civil defence agency said on Thursday that an overnight Israeli air strike killed at least 11 people, including the chief of the territory’s Hamas-run police force.
“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 Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip,” Gaza’s civil defence agency said in a statement.
Among those killed were the police chief Mahmud Salah and his deputy Hussam Shahwan, agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal said.
In a separate 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 (Gaza) 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”.
Nearly 15 months of war have devastated Gaza’s infrastructure and institutions leading aid agencies to warn of the breakdown of social order.
The ministry said Salah spent 30 years in the police and was appointed its chief six years ago.
The Israeli military told AFP that it was looking into the incident.
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