The death toll from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip and occupied West Bank Sunday climbed to 16, one of the heaviest in a single day in weeks, according to local health officials.
Medics and the Gaza Interior Ministry said an Israeli airstrike killed a senior police official and eight other officers when it hit their vehicle near the entrance to Zawayda town in the central Gaza Strip.
At least 14 other people, mostly bystanders, were wounded, the Gaza Health Ministry said.
Earlier Sunday, one strike hit a house in the urban refugee camp of Nuseirat in central Gaza and killed four people, including a couple in their 30s and their 10-year son, according to the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital. The woman had been pregnant with twins, the hospital said.
The fourth fatality, a 15-year-old neighbor, was taken to the Awda hospital in Nuseirat.
"We were sleeping and got up to the strike of a missile. The strike was strong,” said Mahmoud al-Muhtaseb, a neighbor. "There was no prior warning."
Another strike Sunday afternoon hit a police vehicle on the south-north Salah al-Din route at the entrance of the central town of Zawaida, the Interior Ministry said.
The strike killed eight police officers, including Col. Iyad Ab Yousef, a senior police official in central Gaza, the ministry said.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, which received the bodies, confirmed the toll. It said 14 others were wounded.
The Israeli military said it struck a Hamas members Sunday in response to an earlier incident in which one allegedly opened fire at troops. It didn’t provide further details.
Hamas oversees a police force that has maintained a high degree of public security after the group seized power in Gaza in 2007.
The police largely melted away during Israel's genocidal war, which seized large areas of Gaza and targeted Hamas security forces with airstrikes.
But following an October cease-fire, they have reappeared in Gaza streets and reasserted control in areas not controlled by the Israeli military.
Sunday's deaths were the latest fatalities among Palestinians in the coastal enclave since the cease-fire deal attempted to halt Israel's more than two-year genocidal war in Gaza.
While the heaviest fighting has subsided, the cease-fire has still seen almost daily Israeli fire. Israeli forces have carried out repeated airstrikes and frequently fire on Palestinians near military-held zones, killing more than 650 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Israel says it has responded to violations of the cease-fire or targeted wanted individuals. But about half of those killed have been women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
They were among more than 72,200 Palestinians killed in the war, which was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7 incursion, which caused over 1,200 deaths and took 250 others hostage.
Separately, Israel announced it will allow the reopening of Gaza’s Rafah crossing with Egypt starting Wednesday after more than two-week hiatus.
COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid to Gaza, said in a statement that the crossing will resume operations with "limited” passenger traffic in both directions. No cargo will be allowed through the crossing, it said.
COGAT said procedures will be the same as before the crossing closed after Israel and the U.S. launched devastating strikes on Iran on Feb. 28, triggering an expanding war in the region.
Since its opening earlier this year, Israel has allowed a limited evacuation of patients and wounded people for treatment outside Gaza – a fraction of more than 20,000 requiring medical evacuations, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Some Palestinians, who were treated in Egypt during the war, were also allowed to return to the strip. Some of the returnees reported abuses by Israeli troops once they crossed the Palestinian gate of the crossing.
