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By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Clauda Tanios
CAIRO (Reuters) - Israeli airstrikes killed at least 68 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including at a tent camp where the head of the enclave's Hamas-controlled police force, his deputy and nine displaced people died, Gaza authorities said.
Israel said the deputy was the head of Palestinian militant group Hamas' security forces in southern Gaza.
The attack occurred in the Al-Mawasi district, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians earlier in the 14-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, which rules Gaza.
The director general of Gaza's police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, who were checking on residents of the camp, were killed in the strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.
"By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the (enclave) and deepening the human suffering of citizens," it added in a statement.
The Israeli military said it had conducted an intelligence-based strike in Al-Mawasi, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, saying he led Hamas forces in south Gaza. It made no mention of Salah's death.
"As the year begins, we got ... another reminder that there is no humanitarian zone let alone a safe zone" in Gaza, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, said in a post on X.
"Everyday without a ceasefire will bring more tragedy."
Thursday’s death toll was among the highest of recent weeks.
Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 57 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in north Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, the Shati (Beach) camp, central Gaza's Maghazi camp and Gaza City.
Israel's military said it had targeted Hamas militants who intelligence indicated were operating in a command and control centre "embedded inside the Khan Younis municipality building in the Humanitarian Area".
Asked about Thursday's reported death toll, a spokesperson for the Israeli military said it followed international law in waging the war in Gaza and that it took "feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm".
The Israeli military has accused Gaza militants of using built-up residential areas for cover. Hamas denies this.
Hamas' smaller ally Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets into the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holit near Gaza on Thursday. The Israeli military said it intercepted one projectile in the area that had crossed from southern Gaza.
Israel has killed more than 45,500 Palestinians in the war, according to Gaza's health ministry. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny, heavily built-up coastal territory is in ruins.
The war was triggered by Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023 cross-border attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and another 251 taken hostage to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
(Reporting by Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Clauda Tanios, Ali Sawafta, Tala Ramadan, Yomna Ehab, Ahmed Tolba and Maytaal Angel; editing by Himani Sarkar, Michael Perry, Mark Heinrich, Kevin Liffey and Cynthia Osterman)
