(Files to make the advice line read 37, not 40, are dead; the text of the story does not change)
By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Clauda Tanios
CAIRO (Reuters) – Israeli airstrikes killed at least 37 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 11 people in a tent camp sheltering displaced families, doctors said.
They said 11 included women and children in the district of Al-Mawasi, which was designated as a humanitarian aid site before the war between Israel and the ruling group of Gaza of Hamas, now in its 15th month.
The director general of the Gaza police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his assistant, Hussam Shahwan, were killed in the strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.
“By committing the crime of killing the director general of the police in the Gaza Strip, the operation focuses on spreading chaos (the enclave) and intensifying the suffering of the population,” it added in the statement.
The Israeli army said it carried out an intelligence-based raid in Al-Mawasi, west of the city of Khan Younis, and removed Shahwan, naming him the head of Hamas' security forces in southern Gaza. It did not say anything about Salah's death.
Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, Shati (Sea) camp and Maghazi camp in central Gaza.
The Israeli army said it was targeting Hamas fighters that intelligence said were operating in a command and control center “installed inside the Khan Younis municipal building in the Civil Area”.
When asked about the death of 37 people, an Israeli army spokesman said it followed international law in fighting the war in Gaza and took “measures to prevent civilian casualties”.
The army accuses Gazan soldiers of using the shelters they built to protect themselves. Hamas denies this.
Hamas's junior partner Islamic Jihad fired rockets into the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holit near Gaza on Thursday. The Israeli army said it intercepted one projectile that had fallen in southern Gaza.
Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to the Gaza health ministry. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the heavily built-up coastal area is in ruins.
The war was caused by Oct. Oct. 7 7, 2023 border attack across the border with Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were arrested in Gaza, according to the Israelis.