CAIRO: Israeli air strikes killed four Palestinians, including the head of the Hamas-led police force, in Gaza Strip, occupied West Bank and Khan Yunis areas on Saturday.
Abdel Nasser Al Maqadma, also known as the governor of northern Gaza Strip, was killed by an Israeli attack in the Sheikh Radwan area north of Gaza City.
Another Israeli strike killed a Palestinian medic in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza Strip.
Two Palestinians were killed in yet another Israeli attack on a house in Khan Yunis, in the south of the enclave, taking Saturday’s death toll to four.
70 Palestinians held at interrogation centre after Israeli settlers attacked West Bank village
Israel has killed at least twenty members of Gaza’s police force in the past months, accusing many of them of being members of the Hamas armed wing who posed “imminent threats to Israel”.
Hamas says Israeli attacks on the police force and its headquarters are intended to sow chaos and anarchy in the enclave and violate the US-brokered October ceasefire.
The latest deaths add to a toll of more than 1,180 Palestinians, mostly civilians, killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect.
The truce halted full-scale fighting, but has not ended near-daily Israeli strikes. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed in Gaza over the same period.
Egypt, Qatar, Turkiye and the United States have been trying to advance President Donald Trump’s plan for ending the conflict in Gaza, which calls for Hamas disarmament and Israeli withdrawals, but there has been little sign of progress in the efforts.
Israel effectively controls an estimated 64 per cent of the tiny coastal strip, bombarded to ruins by Israel’s two-year military assault that began in Oct 2023.
Nearly all of Gaza’s two million people now live on a tiny strip of land, mainly in makeshift tents or damaged buildings and face dire conditions.
Palestinians rounded up
Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, after four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed when armed Israeli settlers approached a Palestinian village the previous day.
Palestinian authorities said Friday’s shootings were provoked by the settlers who aimed to attack villagers in Tal, southwest of Nablus. The Israeli military initially described the Israeli civilians involved in the incident as hikers, but later acknowledged some were armed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to take “powerful action” in response to the incident, including demolishing the home of the family of one of the Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s office said he would accelerate the approval for construction of more settlements in the area.
Field interrogation centre
The mayor of Tal, the Palestinian village attacked by settlers, said around 70 people had been detained by Israelis and questioned at a field interrogation centre set up in a house. “House raids are continuing, army patrols are driving through the streets, and there is no movement of people in the streets,” Walid Zidan said.
However, the Israeli military claimed security forces had questioned 80 people in Tal and arrested only 11 of them. Dozens more were arrested in raids across the West Bank, the Israeli military added.
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli settlers live among millions of Palestinians in the occupied territory, which Israel captured in 1967. Nearly all countries and UN bodies consider such settlements illegal under international law.
Recent months have seen a sharp increase in attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian villages.
Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2026
