Israeli airstrikes killed at least 43 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip yesterday, including 11 people in a tent encampment sheltering displaced families, medics said.

They said the 11 included women and children in the Al-Mawasi district, which was designated as a humanitarian zone for civilians.

The director general of Gaza's police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his aide, Hussam Shahwan, were killed in the strike, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.

"By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos in the (enclave) and deepening the human suffering of citizens," it added in a statement.

The Israeli military said it had conducted an intelligence-based strike in Al-Mawasi, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, calling him the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza. It made no mention of Salah's death.

Other Israeli airstrikes killed at least 26 Palestinians, including six in the interior ministry headquarters in Khan Younis and others in north Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp, the Shati (Beach) camp and central Gaza's Maghazi camp.

Israel's military said it had targeted Hamas members who intelligence indicated were operating in a command and control centre "embedded inside the Khan Younis municipality building in the Humanitarian Area".

Israel has killed at least 45,581 Palestinians since the offensive began on October, 2023, according to health officials in the enclave. Most of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced and much of the tiny coastal strip is in ruins.

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority (PA) temporarily halted operations of Qatar's Al Jazeera television in the territory including its broadcasts, citing the network's dissemination of "inciting material," the Palestinian news agency WAFA said.

The culture, interior and communications ministers made the decision jointly because the channel broadcast material that was "deceiving and stirring strife," WAFA said without providing details on the subject matter.

The order said the decision was temporary but did not specify an end date.

Later yesterday, separate Israeli airstrikes killed at least four people on Jala Street in downtown Gaza City and two in its Zeitoun district, medics said.

Hamas' smaller ally Islamic Jihad said it fired rockets into the southern Israeli kibbutz of Holit near Gaza yesterday. The Israeli military said it intercepted one projectile in the area that had crossed from southern Gaza.