A Palestinian inspects the damage to a tent and burned vehicles following an attack attributed to Israeli settlers in the Palestinian village of Sarra, west of Nablus, in the occupied West Bank, July 24, 2026. (Credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP)
An Israeli airstrike on Saturday killed the head of the police force in the northern Gaza Strip, Brig. Gen. Abdel-Nasser al-Maqadma, the Interior Ministry and medics said.
The Interior Ministry and medics said al-Maqadma, who also served as governor of northern Gaza, was killed in an Israeli strike on the Sheikh Radwan area, north of Gaza City.
In a separate incident, another Israeli strike killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, medics said. They added that a police officer wounded in an Israeli airstrike last week died Saturday.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the incidents.
Israel has killed dozens of members of the police force, including senior officials, in recent months, accusing many of them of belonging to Hamas’ armed wing and posing imminent threats to Israeli forces operating in Gaza.
Hamas says Israeli attacks on the police force and its headquarters are intended to sow chaos and anarchy in the enclave and violate the U.S.-brokered cease-fire that took effect in October.
The latest deaths bring to more than 1,180 the number of Palestinians, most of them civilians, killed in Israeli attacks since the cease-fire began, according to Gaza health officials. Hamas does not usually disclose its own casualties.
The truce halted full-scale fighting but has not ended near-daily Israeli strikes. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza during the same period.
Mediators including Egypt, Qatar, Turkey and the United States have been trying to advance U.S. President Donald Trump’s plan to end the war, which calls for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to withdraw from Gaza, but there has been little sign of progress.
The war began when Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel’s subsequent military offensive has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.
Israel now effectively controls an estimated 64 percent of the Gaza Strip, much of which has been reduced to rubble during nearly two years of war following the Hamas attack.
Nearly all of Gaza’s 2 million residents have been displaced and now live in a small portion of the territory, mostly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings, under dire humanitarian conditions, according to aid agencies.
