Displaced Palestinians help carry away victims from the site of an Israeli strike that targeted the municipal police headquarters in Gaza City on Wednesday, August 19. AFP
Al-Shifa Hospital said it received nine bodies, including those of a woman and a girl. Most of the bodies were burned and dismembered, the hospital said.
Gaza's Civil Defence spokesman Mahmoud Bassal said some of the wounded were in critical condition and warned that the death toll could rise because the police post was in a densely populated area next to a municipal park where hundreds of people had gathered.
Bassal said the police officers at the site were primarily responsible for maintaining security and containing disorder amid mounting pressures in Gaza.
The director of the territory's women's police force was among those killed, he said.
Gaza's police directorate described the strike as a “new brutal massacre” targeting officers and members of the civilian police force.
The attack came a day after an Israeli strike on the Gaza City port killed seven Palestinians, including a child, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Hamas accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilian police and residents and of seeking to undermine efforts by mediators to maintain the ceasefire.
Hamas said the latest escalation threatened to reignite the war and called on mediators and guarantors of the ceasefire, including US President Donald Trump's administration, to take “a clear and firm position” and pressure Israel to comply with the agreement.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also condemned the strikes, saying continued Israeli attacks showed Israel's rejection of efforts to reach a lasting ceasefire.
The attacks come amid a broader pattern of strikes on police personnel and facilities in Gaza. The United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said in June that it had documented at least 12 attacks against police since January, killing at least 53 civilians, including 35 police personnel.
The UN has said police personnel are civilians protected under international humanitarian law unless they are directly participating in hostilities.
The health ministry said Israeli violations of the ceasefire have killed at least 1,273 Palestinians and wounded 4,223 others.
Israel's genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023 has killed more than 73,400 Palestinians and wounded more than 174,000, most of them women and children.
About 90 percent of Gaza's civilian infrastructure has been destroyed or damaged, while roughly 1.9 million people have been repeatedly displaced.
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