Palestinian mayor killed in Israeli airstrike in central Gaza

ANKARA

A Palestinian mayor was killed in an overnight Israeli airstrike in the central Gaza Strip, local authorities said on Tuesday.

Hatem al-Ghamri, the mayor of the Maghazi district, was killed when Israeli fighter jets struck a local government building in central Gaza, the government media office said in a statement.

The killing is “a war crime that contravenes international laws that grant immunity and protection to civilian figures,” it said.

According to Palestinian media, at least five people were killed in the attack.

The Israeli army confirmed the airstrike that targeted al-Ghamri in central Gaza.

A military statement said that al-Ghamri was the head of an emergency committee, a Hamas body tasked with maintaining public order and civil control in Gaza.

It also accused al-Ghamri of being a member of Hamas’ armed wing who was responsible for rocket fire from Maghazi.

Israel has waged a deadly military offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 cross-border attack by Hamas, which killed some 1,200 people.

Over 33,200 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 76,000 others injured amid mass destruction and shortages of necessities.

The Israeli war, now in its sixth month, has pushed 85% of Gaza’s population into internal displacement amid acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 60% of the enclave's infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.

Israel stands accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which in January issued an interim ruling that ordered Tel Aviv to stop genocidal acts and take measures to guarantee that humanitarian assistance is provided to civilians in Gaza.