Israel's military said Thursday that it had killed Gaza's police chief in an airstrike on the enclave's Al-Mawasi humanitarian zone outside the southern city of Khan Younis.

Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, mostly women and children, Gaza officials said Wednesday, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year.

The Israeli military kept up the pressure on northern Gaza on Wednesday, striking in a suburb of Gaza City, medics said, and told residents in a central part of the enclave to evacuate from an area where militants were firing rockets.

The new year brought more death for civilians in Gaza as Israel Defense Forces airstrikes resulted in 17 killed on Wednesday, according to Palestinian accounts.

One of the strikes early Thursday hit a tent in an Israeli-declared humanitarian zone known as Muwasi, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are sheltering in tents during the cold and rainy winter.

It killed three children, three women and four men, according to the Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies. Among the dead were Maj. Gen. Mahmoud Salah, general director of the Gaza police, and his deputy,

An Israeli strike killed at least 11 Palestinians overnight, including the director general of Gaza police and a deputy, in Al-Mawasi, southern Gaza, local officials said Thursday.

An Israeli airstrike killed 11 people and injured others in the south of the Gaza Strip early on Thursday morning, according to Palestinian reports. Israeli fighter jets struck a makeshift tent housing displaced persons in the designated humanitarian area in al-Mawasi,