Several dead as Israeli airstrike targets Palestinian police vehicle in Rafah

By Hania Al-Shaer

GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA) – Several Palestinian police personnel, affiliated with the Interior Ministry run by Hamas, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a police vehicle in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, in the second such attack on Saturday.

Citing local sources, an Anadolu correspondent reported that a number of Palestinian police officers were killed in the airstrike.

There was no immediate comment from the Health Ministry regarding the number of fatalities.

Earlier in the day, Israeli forces carried out a similar airstrike on a police vehicle in western Rafah, leaving three policemen dead.

“Rafah Investigations Director Ahmed Al-Yaqoubi, his deputy Ayman Al-Rantisi, and head of the Supply Investigations Department Ibrahim Shtat were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting their vehicle in the Tel Al-Sultan neighborhood, in western Rafah,” according to an Anadolu correspondent.

On Tuesday, the police media office stated that Israel killed six of its members “by targeting their vehicle in the Khirbet Al-Adas area, in eastern Rafah, while they were securing aid trucks.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered the military to submit a dual plan to evacuate Palestinian residents from Rafah, home to more than 1 million residents seeking refuge from war, and to defeat the remaining "Hamas battalions."

The Palestinians have sought refuge in Rafah as Israel pounded the rest of the enclave following the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion. The bombardment has killed nearly 28,000 people, besides causing mass destruction and shortages of basic necessities.

The Israeli offensive has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave’s infrastructure was damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala