Israeli Strike Kills Seven at Gaza Police Post
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- Col Mohammed Marwan Salem, head of the local police station in Jabalia, was killed along with at least six others when an Israeli drone fired four missiles at a police post near a busy market, according to witnesses who spoke to the BBC.
- The Israeli military identified Salem as head of military security for Hamas's Central Jabaliya Battalion and named three others killed: Abdul Malik al-Jabin, Ghassan al-Daqas, and Yaman Abu Obeida, calling them all "terrorists."
- Mohammed Moussa, uncle of one of the dead officers, insisted his nephew was a civilian police member patrolling the Fallujah roundabout in a civilian vehicle when surveillance aircraft "targeted him" — a claim the Israeli military's framing of the men as militants directly contradicts.
- Muataz Abu Shaar, a 10-year-old boy, was killed by Israeli gunfire in Rafah while "sitting in his tent, getting changed," his aunt Suzan Abu Shaar said; the Israeli military has not commented on that incident, leaving the killing unacknowledged.
- A separate Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis killed a man and injured three others; the military said it struck a Hamas operative.
- The October ceasefire is under mounting strain: Gaza's Hamas-run health ministry says at least 1,110 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire since it took effect, while Israel reports four soldiers killed in Palestinian attacks over the same period.
- The cumulative toll since the Hamas-led 7 October 2023 attack that killed roughly 1,200 people and took 251 hostages now stands at more than 73,230 killed, according to Gaza's health ministry.
Why it matters: The Jabalia strike reveals the impossibility of separating 'security targets' from civilians on the ground: Israel frames the dead police chief as a Hamas military-security commander, while his colleague's family insists he was off-duty civilian police. With 1,110 Palestinian deaths logged since the October ceasefire and even children killed in their tents, each side's claim of 'near-daily violations' by the other rests on the same disputed battlefield — and no accountability mechanism exists to adjudicate who is right.
