Israeli fire kills 10 in Gaza

CAIRO:

An Israeli strike and gunfire killed at least 10 Palestinians, including a 10-year-old boy, and a senior Hamas police officer, in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, Gazan health and police officials said.

The deaths add to a toll of more than 1,100 Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks since an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect, according to health officials in the enclave.

The truce halted major fighting but has failed to stop sporadic violence. Four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants in Gaza over the same period.

Medics said Muataz Abu Shaar, 10, was shot on Tuesday by Israeli gunfire in Rafah, southern Gaza.

In Jabalia, in the north of the enclave, an Israeli airstrike on a post of the Hamas-led police force killed at least seven people, including a woman, and wounded several other people, medics and police officials said.

The Hamas-led interior ministry said in a statement the dead included the head of the Jabalia police force, Colonel Mohammad Marwan Salem, along with other officers.

The Israeli military said in a statement it killed Salem, whom it described as the head of Hamas' central Jabalia battalion, along with three other militants of the group. Those killed have in recent months gathered with the goal of planning and carrying out attacks, it added. "They were eliminated in order to remove the threat."