An Israeli airstrike on Saturday killed the head of the police force in the northern Gaza Strip, Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser Al-Maqadma, the enclave’s interior ministry and medics said.

Maqadma, one of at least five Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Saturday, was also known as the governor of the northern Gaza Strip. He was killed in the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City, medics said.

The Israeli military claimed he was part of Hamas’ military wing.

Israel has killed dozens of members of the police force, including senior officials, in the past months, accusing many of them of being members of the Hamas armed wing.

Hamas says Israeli attacks on the police force and its headquarters are intended to sow chaos and anarchy in the enclave and violate the US-brokered October ceasefire.

Medics, high school student among dead

Another Israeli strike on Saturday killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, medics said, adding that a police officer wounded by an Israeli airstrike last week succumbed to their injuries.

The Israeli military didn’t immediately comment on the incident.

An Israeli airstrike also killed two people in a house in Khan Younis, in the south of the enclave, medics said. The Israeli military claimed the strike targeted a fighter from the Islamic Jihad group.

Later on Saturday, an Israeli airstrike, also in Khan Younis, killed Khaled Al-Breim, a high school student, taking Saturday’s death toll to at least five.

Relatives said Breim was killed as he sought to bring sweets to distribute to relatives and friends who had flocked into his family home to offer their congratulations as he had just concluded high school and was preparing for university.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the student’s death.

The latest deaths add to a toll of more than 1,180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, according to Gaza health officials.

Hamas does not usually disclose its losses.

The truce halted full-scale fighting but has not ended near-daily Israeli strikes. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by fighters in Gaza over the same period.

Peace talks stalled

Mediators including Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the United States have been trying to advance US President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the conflict in Gaza, which calls for Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawals, but there has been little sign of progress in the efforts.

The war began when Hamas-led fighters attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent offensive has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, say Gaza health officials.

Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of the tiny coastal Strip, bombarded to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault that followed the 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel.

Nearly all of Gaza’s 2 million people now live on a tiny strip of land, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings and facing dire conditions.