(Refiles to say two airstrikes in paragraph 1)
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO, Aug 13 (Reuters) – Israeli airstrikes killed two Palestinians, including a senior police official, in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, in the first reported fatalities in more than a week as the Israeli military scaled back its targeted attacks in the enclave under U.S. pressure.
Palestinian medics said the first strike targeted two people riding on a motorbike, in a western area of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. One person was killed and the other was wounded, they added.
The Israeli military said in a statement that the Khan Younis airstrike targeted a Hamas commander planning an attack on its troops.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli drone launched three missiles against a vehicle driving in western Gaza City, killing the head of the Gaza City police force, and critically wounding two other people medics and witnesses said.
The Hamas-led interior ministry also confirmed in a statement the “assassination” by Israel of police colonel Jamal Abu Kmail.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Israel had stepped up attacks on members of the Hamas-led police force since an October ceasefire began, killing dozens of them, according to security and health officials.
TRUMP GAZA PLAN
U.S. President Donald Trump announced last month that there had been a breakthrough in his plan to end the war, to which both Israel and Hamas agreed, with Israeli forces withdrawing as Hamas disarms and an International Stabilization Force working with a new Palestinian police force to secure the enclave.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu restated his rejection of Trump’s latest Gaza plan in televised remarks to his right-wing government, even as Israel’s military had effectively halted attacks in the territory under pressure from the U.S. president.
Hamas said it agreed to the plan to avoid a resumption of war, but it added that the implementation of the deal would depend on Israel first meeting its own commitments, including withdrawal and halting attacks.
On Wednesday, the Israeli military said in a statement that a man was hit in an aerial strike in order to remove a threat to Israeli military troops. Gaza medics said one person was critically wounded in the attack in Beit Lahiya town, in the north of the enclave.
Israeli fire has killed more than 1,250 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, since a U.S.-backed ceasefire halted two years of full-scale war in October.
It is unclear how many of those killed might be militants since Hamas does not usually disclose information about dead fighters.
Four Israeli soldiers were killed by militants in Gaza over the same period, according to an Israeli tally.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi;Editing by Keith Weir and Alison Williams)
Comments