GAZA — Israel carried out targeted strikes in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, killing two Palestinians and marking the first reported fatalities from such attacks in more than a week as the Israeli military had scaled back operations under U.S. pressure, Palestinian medics and Israeli officials said.
The first strike hit two people traveling on a motorcycle in western Khan Younis in southern Gaza, according to Palestinian medics. One person was killed and the other wounded.
The Israeli military said the strike targeted a Hamas commander who was planning an attack on Israeli troops. It did not provide further details about the alleged operation.
Later on Thursday, an Israeli drone fired three missiles at a vehicle in western Gaza City, killing Jamal Abu Kmail, head of the Gaza City police force, and critically wounding two other people, according to medics and witnesses.
The Hamas-led interior ministry confirmed Abu Kmail's death and described the strike as an assassination. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on that strike.
The attacks came as a fragile ceasefire remained in place and Washington pressed Israel and Hamas to advance a plan aimed at ending the conflict. U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed an arrangement under which Israeli forces would withdraw as Hamas disarms, with an international stabilization force and a new Palestinian police force helping secure the enclave.
Hamas has said it agreed to the plan to avoid a renewed war but conditioned implementation on Israel meeting its commitments, including a military withdrawal and an end to attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has rejected the proposal, saying Israel would not withdraw until Hamas was fully disarmed.
Israel's military had said on Wednesday that it carried out an aerial strike in Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza against a man it described as posing a threat to its troops. Gaza medics said one person was critically wounded.
The latest strikes follow months of intermittent violence despite the U.S.-backed ceasefire that halted two years of full-scale war in October. According to a Reuters tally based on Gaza health officials and Israeli figures, more than 1,250 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli fire since the ceasefire began, while four Israeli soldiers have been killed by militants during the same period.
It was not immediately clear how many of the Palestinians killed since the ceasefire were combatants, as Hamas does not routinely identify fighters among the dead.
