After an Israeli airstrike on a police vehicle killed eight people in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, on April 24, 2026. BASHAR TALEB/AFP
On Wednesday, May 6, Nassim al-Kalazani, a senior police official in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, was killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting his vehicle. The strike also left many wounded, according to health authorities in the enclave. The day before, Israeli warplanes had targeted the Sheikh Radwan police station in the northwest of Gaza City, killing a 15-year-old boy and injuring several law enforcement officers. On Friday, April 24, the Bir 19 area in the overcrowded al-Mawassi camp in southern Gaza witnessed a bloodbath: An Israeli strike on a police patrol intervening in a violent dispute between two families killed eight people, including four police officers. That same day, in Gaza City, two more officers died in a targeted strike that left three dead in total.
Despite the ceasefire declared on October 10, 2025, between Israel and Hamas, Palestinian law enforcement operating under the Interior Ministry of the Gaza Strip – still governed by the Islamist movement – remain regularly targeted by the Israeli army, whether at their stations, in their vehicles, or at checkpoints. They are deployed west of the so-called "yellow line," in the part of Palestinian territory from which Israeli troops withdrew. In six months, 31 of these police officers were killed, while more than 830 people in total died in Israeli strikes, including 26% children and 10% women, according to the health ministry.
