Israeli strike on a Gaza City police headquarters kills nine

Gaza's police department said Israeli fighter jets bombed the municipalities police headquarters of Gaza Governorate, in Gaza City, on Wednesday afternoon, in an attack it said involved several bombs. Paramedics put the toll at 9 people killed and more than 15 wounded, and a medical source at al-Shifa Hospital said the dead and the injured were brought there. The first count reported was 6 killed, and it was revised upwards through the afternoon.

Local medical sources said police personnel and children were among those killed. Local reports said several senior officers were also among the dead, including Colonel Faten al-Sahhar, who headed the women's police department.

The Ministry of Interior and National Security called the strike a brutal massacre and said Israel is working to disable the police so that disorder spreads inside the territory. It rejected the grounds given for the attack, and said the quiet abroad about earlier strikes on police, together with the mediators' failure to act on them, had made this one likelier.

The Israeli military said it had struck Hamas operatives who were planning attacks on its troops, and gave no evidence for the claim. Hamas rejected it, called the strike a war crime and said its timing pointed to an intent to obstruct the mediators. It warned that continued attacks on the civil security agencies would open a security vacuum, and called on the mediators, the guarantors and Washington to act.

The building that was hit belongs to the civil police, the force responsible for day-to-day order rather than for fighting, and that is what the dispute over the strike turns on: Israel describes what it struck as Hamas, while the police and the interior ministry describe it as the administration that keeps traffic moving and aid queues in order. The ministry's warning is about what comes after the toll rather than about the toll itself — every strike on this force leaves fewer people to hold order in a city where it is already thin.

Earlier on Wednesday a strike on a motorcycle killed one Palestinian south of Nuseirat refugee camp, by Camp 2, and a strike hit a cafe on Gaza City's seafront the day before. All of it came while mediators were pressing to advance the ceasefire that took effect on 10 October 2025.