Over nearly ten months, Israel has been increasingly targetting police personnel in Gaza. / Photo: TRT World
On a sultry morning in the first week of June, 10-year-old Tala Al Deeri was baking bread with her mother when she heard the earth-shattering sound of an explosion nearby.
At first, she thought her tent in Deir al Balah, where she had been residing with her family since their displacement from northern Gaza five months ago, had been struck.
Her ears ringing from the blast, she panicked and ran outside. She saw blood and dismembered body parts scattered across the streets – a man split in two, another man’s headless torso lying in pools of blood.
Tala’s uncle was among the eight police personnel dead in the incident when an Israeli drone carried out the precision strike on the vehicle carrying security personnel. Many others were rushed to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital with severe injuries.
Over nearly ten months, Israel has been increasingly targetting police personnel in Gaza, where the Zionist state has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.
The Euro-Med Monitor has documented the death of an estimated 700 police personnel in the besieged enclave since October 7. Most of these law-enforcement personnel were victims of targeted killings by Israel, experts and Palestinian civilians say.
“The targeting of civil police officers clearly aims to destabilise the community and create chaos, preventing citizens from accessing basic necessities, and thereby subjecting civilians to disorder to achieve political objectives,” says Ramy Abdu, a Palestinian assistant professor of law and the chairman of Euro-Med Monitor in Gaza.
The vehicle carrying security personnel was targeted by the Israeli drone.The vehicle carrying security personnel was targeted by the Israeli drone.
“Targeting civil police officers, who are not involved in any armed faction activities, is prohibited under international law as they are civilians providing civil services and not engaged in military combat,” he tells TRT World.
As attacks on police personnel increased this year, even Israel’s staunchest ally, the US, was forced to ask the Netanyahu government to stop targeting the law-enforcement personnel.
Gaza officials say that most of the police personnel targetted by Israel were involved in escorting aid convoys to their final delivery points.
The slain personnel include Weam Mattar, head of the Social Police in Gaza, who was killed along with several family members, and Amjad Hathat, the director of the Emergency Committee.
“Israel views the entire Palestinian population as legitimate targets, making no distinction between military personnel and civilians,” Abdu says, adding that the slain officers were involved in “securing homes from theft, roads, aid distribution centres, humanitarian aid convoys, and protecting service centres, including water distribution centres”.
Israeli said as much, admitting that its military made no distinction between Hamas resistance and Gaza police personnel.
“Hamas police is Hamas,” Col. Elad Goren, a senior Israeli army officer, was quoted as saying during a press briefing. “And we won’t allow Hamas to control the humanitarian assistance.”
Some municipality workers were also killed or injured in the attack.
A routine disrupted
Each morning, 60-year-old Fayez Kullab walked to his falafel stall to prepare sandwiches for hungry customers. The past nine months had been difficult by all accounts, but he wanted to keep up with a sense of routine for the sake of his children.
On that day, however, the sound of the explosion in Deir al Balah burst his bubble.
“I rushed to see what happened and saw blood splattered all over the streets, charred bodies, and men lying in pieces,” he says, standing by his stall facade punctured with shrapnel from that day.
“Why did Israel do this?” he asks. “These were regular policemen who would drop by to help us set up our stalls. There were even some municipality workers who were killed or injured.”
Then he answers his own question: “To create chaos. There’s no other reason. How can a human being endure all this? It’s unbearable. It’s not even a war, it’s a genocide. We’re living in hell.”
Another expert also feels that this sort of targeted killing is “a deliberate attempt at creating chaos” in Gaza.
He says Israel is not only trying to destroy Gaza but also erase all forms of governance and authority in the enclave.
Fayez Kullab's falafel stall in Deir al Balah.
Experts, as well as Palestinian activists, agree that Israel’s targeting of police personnel was aimed at a breakdown in law and order in the enclave where tensions are running high, and the patience of a starving population is wearing thin.
The collateral damage to targetting police hangs heavy over the civilian population. Some of them just children.
Just like young Tala, who saw her friend Nada engulfed in flames following the drone strike.
“Her hair and body were on fire. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing…,” Tala says amid heaving sobs.
“Just yesterday, Nada and I were playing hide-and-seek. Now, I can’t recognise her. She has been taken to the ICU. I hope she will be okay.”
TRT World is withholding the author’s name because the Israeli army has been deliberately targeting journalists in Gaza to conceal their war crimes.
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