The police chief of Gaza and several children were among the dead Thursday as Israel killed at least 28 people under 24 hours in the Palestinian territory.
An Israeli airstrike killed 11 people and injured others in the south of the Gaza Strip early Thursday morning, according to Palestinian reports.
Meanwhile, Gaza's civil defense agency said two other Israeli strikes later Thursday elsewhere in the territory killed 14 Palestinians.
The Israeli military confirmed it had carried out the overnight strike on the area of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, which it said targeted deputy police chief Hussam Shahwan over his alleged role in planning attacks on Israeli troops.
The civil defense agency said Shahwan was among 11 people killed in the strike, which according to the rescuers and authorities in Gaza also left the commander of the police force, Mahmud Salah, dead.
"Eleven people were martyred, including three children and two women, and 15 were injured after the (Israeli) occupation aircraft bombed a tent housing displaced people in the al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis city in the southern Gaza Strip," said a civil defense statement.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for the agency, said the two senior police officers were among the dead.
The Israeli military, which has not commented on Salah's death, claimed his deputy Shahwan "was responsible for developing intelligence assessments in coordination with ... Hamas's military wing" in attacks on Israeli forces in Gaza.
Ambulance driver Saleem Abu Subha said rescuers "found the injured lying on the ground, most of them children, as well as two female martyrs" at the site of the strike.
"About 10 tents were damaged, and scattered fires were visible," he said.
The territory's Interior Ministry condemned in a statement the killing of the two top officers, saying "they were performing their humanitarian and national duty in serving our people."
It accused Israel of spreading "chaos" and deepening "the human suffering" in Gaza with the deadly strike.
"The police force is a civil protection force that works to provide services to citizens," the ministry statement said.
The ministry said Salah spent 30 years in the force and was appointed police chief six years ago.
The Israeli military has repeatedly attacked the humanitarian zone in al-Mawasi in the past, claiming that its targets are command centers used by the Palestinian resistance group, Hamas.
Elsewhere in Gaza, the civil defense agency said a strike on Jabalia, in the north, killed at least 10 people.
The Israeli military, whose forces have been engaged in a sweeping operation in northern Gaza since early October, has not commented on the latest strike.
The recent killings pushed the total death toll in Gaza since October 2023 to 45,581, the Health Ministry in the enclave said Thursday.
A ministry statement added that some 108,438 others were injured in the ongoing assault.
"Israeli forces killed 28 people and injured 59 others in two massacres of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said.
"Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them,” it added.
Israel has raised a genocidal war in the Gaza Strip since the Hamas incursion on Oct. 7, 2023, despite a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
The second year of genocide in Gaza has drawn growing international condemnation, with officials and institutions labeling the attacks and blocking of aid deliveries as a deliberate attempt to destroy a population.
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its deadly war on Gaza.
