• Police say site in Al-Tuam hit by two missiles; Hamas calls attack a crime intended to ‘spread chaos’
• France bans Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entry for mocking flotilla activists
GAZA CITY: An Israeli strike killed five police officers and a child in the northern Gaza Strip on Saturday, said rescuers and the Palestinian territory’s police force.
Gaza’s civil defence agency reported six people killed and “a certain number of injured” after an airstrike targeted a police site in the al-Tuam area.
The al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City confirmed that it received six bodies, which included those of five police officers and one child born in 2011. An AFP correspondent there saw at least three bodies wrapped in white shrouds.
The police force in Gaza said five of its officers were killed, adding that two missiles had been fired on the police site in al-Tuam. A witness said the attack targeted a tent used by police, located next to a checkpoint.
A ceasefire has been in place since October, but Israel argues it reserves the right to strike targets it deems a threat. Gaza remains gripped by daily violence as Israeli strikes continue, with both the military and Hamas accusing one another of violating the truce.
The Hamas government’s Interior Ministry said 42 police officers have been killed in the territory since the ceasefire took effect.
In a statement, Hamas said the killing of police officers was intended to spread chaos in the Gaza Strip.
At least 890 Palestinians have been killed since the Oct 10 ceasefire, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by the UN. Media restrictions and limited access in Gaza have prevented AFP from independently verifying casualty figures or freely covering the fighting.
France bans Ben-Gvir
Separately, France announced on Saturday that it has banned Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir from entry for mocking bound activists seized by Israeli soldiers on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
“From today, Itamar Ben-Gvir is banned from entering French territory” after “his reprehensible actions toward French and European citizens” who were part of the humanitarian flotilla, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on X.
He added that, with Italy, he was also calling for European Union-level sanctions against the far-right Israeli minister.
The ban follows a global outcry after Ben-Gvir published a video on Wednesday showing the heavy-handed treatment in Israeli custody of foreign activists from the flotilla. They were detained by Israel after its soldiers seized them in international waters.
In the video, dozens of activists are seen forced to kneel with their foreheads to the ground and their hands tied. The clip, which was captioned “Welcome to Israel”, showed Ben-Gvir heckling the activists while waving an Israeli flag.
After the outcry, Israel said it was deporting the activists.
‘Intimidated, brutalised’
Thirty-six French nationals were on board the flotilla, the latest attempt by activists to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza after Israeli forces intercepted a previous convoy last month.
While Barrot said France disapproved of the flotilla’s actions, arguing they served “no useful purpose”, he added that “we cannot tolerate French nationals being threatened, intimidated or brutalised in this way, especially by a public official”.
Spain has also urged the EU to sanction Ben- Gvir, while the United Kingdom summoned Israel’s most senior diplomat in Britain following “the inflammatory video”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ben Gvir’s treatment of the activists was “not in line with Israel’s values and norms”, but he kept the security minister in his post. Netanyahu had earlier denounced the humanitarian aid mission as a “malicious scheme” intended to support Hamas.
The activists had departed from Turkiye last week on around 50 vessels under the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Israel controls all entry points into Gaza, which has been under an Israeli blockade since 2007. During the Gaza war, the territory suffered severe shortages of food, medicine and other essential supplies, with Israel at times halting aid deliveries entirely.
Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2026