The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemned the Israeli occupation forces’ targeting of a temporary municipal police station in Gaza City on Wednesday evening. The attack resulted in the deaths of eight police officers, including two female officers, and a child who was in a nearby municipal park. Eighteen civilians were also injured, some critically. This attack came hours after the arrest of a police officer and a security officer in the southern Gaza Strip.
In a press release issued Thursday, PCHR stated that the attack is part of a recurring pattern of targeting police and security personnel working to maintain public order in the Gaza Strip. This coincides with the ongoing targeting of civilians, displaced persons’ camps, markets, and civilian gatherings in various parts of the Strip.
The center noted that an Israeli special forces unit, accompanied by police dogs, infiltrated the area of the regional park southwest of Khan Younis at approximately 1:45 AM on Wednesday, arresting two civilians and taking them to an unknown location.
He explained that the detainees are Sabri Atwa Shehadeh Abdel Aal, 46, a police officer, and Nash’at Mustafa Suleiman Za’arab, 34, an employee of Al-Aqsa Security Company for Guarding and Logistics Services.
The center believes that targeting and arresting police officers is part of a pattern of repeated attacks on police personnel and stations, which weakens the ability of institutions tasked with maintaining public order to perform their duties, at a time when the security and humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is deteriorating.
