Key points
- Fragile truce holds on
- Israel says “armed individuals” hit
- Gaza Interior Ministry condemns attack
Islamabad: Two Palestinian police officers were killed in an Israeli attack in the Gaza Strip, threatening a fragile truce that has brought Israel’s war on Gaza to a halt.
Gaza’s Interior Ministry said two police officers have been killed and a third was seriously injured in an Israeli attack while securing aid supplies in Rafah in southern Gaza, Al Jazeera reported.
The Israeli military said its air force carried out a strike on “several armed individuals” in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to AFP.
“Earlier today, several armed individuals moving toward troops in the southern Gaza Strip were struck by an (Israeli Air Force) aircraft,” it said in a statement.
Condemnation
Gaza’s Interior Ministry condemned Israeli attack on police force.
Gaza’s Ministry of Interior and National Security has said in a statement that the Israeli attack on police officers in the Gaza Strip took place in the al-Shawka area east of Rafah.
It said the policemen were deployed in the area to secure the entry of aid trucks into Gaza. A third policeman was injured, it added.
It said it “condemns this crime and calls on the mediators and the international community to pressure the occupation to stop targeting the police force as a civilian body that provides services to maintain the security of citizens and organize their daily affairs”.
Hostage swaps
On Saturday, Hamas released three Israeli hostages to the Red Cross, while Israel freed 369 Palestinians in the latest exchange under an ongoing Gaza truce deal.
The released three hostages — Yair Horn, 46, a dual citizen of Israel and Argentina; American-Israeli Sagui Dekel Chen, 36; and Russian-Israeli Alexander (Sasha) Troufanov, 29 — called for the completion of further hostage exchanges under the ceasefire deal.
Later, a busload of Palestinian prisoners departed Israel’s Ofer Prison and was greeted by a cheering crowd in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, AFP reported.
More buses full of prisoners pulled out of an Israeli prison in the Negev desert heading towards Gaza, according to AFP.
The two sides have carried out five swaps since the ceasefire began on January 19, freeing 21 hostages and over 730 Palestinian prisoners so far during the first phase of the truce.
Saturday’s swap, the sixth since the truce took effect, came after fears that the deal between Israel and Hamas was near collapse.
