A day after Israel and terrorists exchanged hostages, Hamas reported an Israeli strike on Sunday killed three police officers near the southern Gaza city of Rafah.
While stationed in the Al-Shouka area, east of Rafah, to secure aid, the interior ministry, which is administered by Hamas, first stated that a strike had killed two officers and badly wounded a third.
Later, the third officer passed away from his injuries, the ministry said in a revised statement.
“Several armed individuals moving toward troops in the southern Gaza Strip” were hit by the Israeli military’s air force, according to a statement.
More than 15 months of fighting in the coastal Palestinian territory have mostly been put on hold by a tenuous ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist organization Hamas that went into effect on January 19.
Israel has carried out at least one further airstrike in Gaza since then. It claimed that on February 2, one of its planes shot at a “suspicious vehicle” in the heart of Gaza.
More recently, Hamas accused Israel of breaking the terms of the truce, especially with regard to aid access, and declared on Saturday that it would not free Israeli detainees, putting the ceasefire to the test.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by threatening to return to “intense fighting” in Gaza unless Hamas returned the hostages by Saturday lunchtime.
The most recent hostage-prisoner exchange was completed on Saturday after extensive mediation by Egypt and Qatar.
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