The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza announced that an Israeli airstrike on a police station in western Jabaliya camp killed station commander Muhammad Marwan Salem and six other officers and policemen.
The Hamas-run interior ministry in Gaza announced Tuesday evening that an Israeli airstrike on a police station in western Jabaliya camp killed station commander Muhammad Marwan Salem and six other officers and policemen. The ministry described Salem as holding the rank of 'Aqid' (equivalent to colonel or deputy superintendent). The announcement provides the first official Hamas confirmation of the strike and the number of fatalities, which aligns with earlier reports of seven killed but differs in the commander's name and the omission of a female officer.
Earlier today, beginning at 12:47 Jerusalem, a rapid sequence of reports from Gazan sources and security analyst Yair Goldblatt shaped the initial picture. The first reports said four people were killed in an Israeli strike on a Hamas police post. Within minutes, the toll was revised to five, then seven, and later to ten, with the Hamas police commander identified as Muhammad Salem. Goldblatt then published the names of seven operatives, including a female officer, and separately reported that the station commander was Abu Inas Salem and that policewoman Fatma Zakout was also killed — a detail absent from the Hamas interior ministry's announcement. The discrepancy in the commander's name may reflect a reporting error or the use of different aliases by the same individual.
The strike comes amid a broader Israeli campaign targeting Hamas police and field commanders in Gaza. As The Zioneer reported on Monday, the IDF killed two Hamas cell commanders in central and northern Gaza, including Muhammad Musa Diab al-Habil, head of a cell in the Western Jabalia Battalion. Earlier this month, a drone strike killed the Hamas Rafah crossing police director in Khan Younis. The Jabaliya area in northern Gaza has been a focal point of Israeli operations against Hamas infrastructure in recent weeks.
The Israeli military has not officially commented on the strike. It remains unclear why the Hamas interior ministry's announcement lists seven fatalities but does not mention Fatma Zakout, who was identified among the killed by Goldblatt. The name inconsistency between the commander identified by Hamas (Muhammad Marwan Salem) and the one named by Goldblatt (Abu Inas Salem) also remains unresolved.
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Source and signal
- Internal intake