The Replacement: A Police Chief, and Six Days

Some questions about the killing of Gaza's police commanders, and about the answers nobody has given

On 13 August, Colonel Jamal Abu Kamil was driving on al-Rashid Street, southwest of Gaza City, when a drone fired three missiles into his vehicle. He was forty-three. He was the head of the civil police force in Gaza City. Two other people were injured.

The Israeli military said it had targeted him to remove a threat, and said he was a Hamas commander. It did not publish evidence. Gaza's police force issued a statement saying he had committed to his police duties and had no connection to other activities.

Somebody had to take over. Brigadier Ayman Mahmoud Mohammed Jendiyah, forty-seven, became acting Director of Gaza Governorate Police.

On 19 August, at about twenty-five past two in the afternoon, a strike hit a room in central Gaza City being used as the Municipal Police headquarters. Jendiyah was killed. So was Colonel Osama Hashem Isma'il al-Hajin, forty-three, the Director of Operations. So was the head of the women's police division. Reports put the dead at nine or ten, with fifteen to eighteen wounded, several critically. Among the dead was a thirteen-year-old girl who had been in the Municipal Park.

Six days. That is how long the replacement lasted.

This piece does not tell you what to conclude about that. It sets out what is documented, sets out what Israel says about it, sets out what makes the picture more complicated than either side's account, and then asks questions that have factual answers, answers which have not been given.

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What is on the record

25 July. Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser al-Maqadma, head of the police force in northern Gaza and governor of the northern governorate, killed in an Israeli strike in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City. The Israeli army said he had been a member of Hamas's military wing. Gaza's Interior Ministry said Israel was deliberately targeting the police force with the aim of spreading chaos.

30 July. Hamas and other Palestinian factions agreed a document setting out a plan for disarmament, announced by President Trump as a monumental step. The agreement stipulated that a precise disarmament roadmap must be prepared within fourteen days, subject to an international verification body and the agreement of all parties. Trump said Israel would withdraw and be replaced by an International Stabilization Force working with a new Palestinian police force once disarmament was complete.

Israel did not publicly agree to the proposal. Hamas said it would implement no part of it unless Israeli forces met their own withdrawal obligations.

13 August. The fourteen days were up. That same day, Colonel Jamal Abu Kamil was killed. The strike came one day after Israel ended a week-long pause in air raids. Israel said he was a Hamas commander and offered no evidence; the police denied it. Later that day, a strike on a motorbike in Khan Younis killed one and critically wounded another, with the same claim and the same absence of evidence.

17 August. The American envoy Jared Kushner concluded talks intended to salvage the ceasefire, producing two working groups, one on disarmament, one on humanitarian access, without resolving the core dispute. Kushner said he would not object to strikes against imminent threats but cautioned against interpreting that broadly.

Within hours of his departure, a strike on a crowded cafe at the Gaza City port, an area being used as a displacement camp, killed at least seven people including a child.

19 August. The strike on the Municipal Police headquarters. Israel said it had targeted members of Hamas's armed wing. Hamas rejected this, saying the dead were predominantly police officers and personnel, called it a ceasefire violation, and accused Israel of seeking to obstruct implementation. The police called it a massacre.

Throughout. Gaza's Ministry of Health has recorded 1,288 killed and 4,290 wounded since the October ceasefire, within a cumulative toll it puts above 73,000 since October 2023. By the end of August, senior Israeli officers were describing a return to pre-ceasefire rules of engagement.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, whose field researchers documented the 19 August strike, describes these killings as a systematic and recurring pattern, and as an escalating policy aimed at undermining what remains of the internal security system and creating a security vacuum.

That is their characterisation. I am not adopting it as mine. But it is on the record, from a named organisation with named researchers and a published methodology, and it deserves weighing rather than dismissal.

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What Israel says, stated properly

The Israeli position is not frivolous and this piece is worthless if it pretends otherwise.

Hamas has governed Gaza since 2007. The police operate under an interior ministry it controls. Officers are recruited, paid and commanded by an administration that Israel, the United States and the European Union designate a terrorist organisation. On that reading the police are not a neutral civil institution that happens to exist under Hamas rule. They are an organ of it.

The law here is genuinely contested, and anyone claiming otherwise is overstating. International humanitarian law protects civilian police performing ordinary law-enforcement functions. It does not protect police incorporated into an armed force or directly participating in hostilities. Where the governing authority is itself an armed group, that line has been argued over by serious lawyers for decades, in conflicts far from this one.

Israel has said, in each case, that the man killed was a member of Hamas's military wing. Where that is true, the strike may well be lawful.

And Hamas has, in documented instances across this war, used civilian structures and personnel for military purposes. That is in the record, and it makes every determination harder.

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And the part that complicates it further

There is something else that belongs here, and a piece that left it out would deserve everything it got.

Between September and October 2025, units of Gaza's Ministry of Interior, the police Arrow Unit and the Rad'a internal security force, carried out a wave of public executions and extrajudicial killings. At least thirty-three people were killed. Men were made to kneel, blindfolded, and shot in the back of the head in the street. Some of it happened outside al-Shifa Hospital. It was filmed and circulated. In the same period, during fighting with the Doghmush clan, further men were executed after capture.

So this is not a story about an ordinary civil police force being destroyed by a foreign army. The institution in question has, within the last year, conducted summary executions in public.

That fact does not make its commanders lawful targets, and it does not tell us whether Ayman Jendiyah was what Israel said he was. Nothing about a force's conduct converts every officer in it into a combatant, and nothing about it removes the requirement to be able to show that a specific individual was one.

But it does mean that anyone reading this should hold two things at once: the killings described below are unexplained, and the institution being decapitated was not innocent. Both are true. Neither cancels the other, and I have no interest in a version of this that pretends otherwise.

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The questions

One. In how many of these cases has evidence been published?

Not asserted, published. The claim in each instance is that a police commander was a military commander. That is a determination made from intelligence, and intelligence can be summarised without exposing sources; states including Israel do it routinely after strikes on senior figures. Contemporaneous reporting notes that in these cases it was not done. Why not? And is there any case among them where it has been done since?

Two. If Gaza's police cannot police, who does?

Two million people. Markets, aid convoys, queues, theft, disputes. If the current force is a lawful target because of who employs it, the follow-up is simply: which body maintains order in the meantime, staffed by whom, appointed by what authority, and starting when?

Three. Who receives the weapons?

This one has an answer, and the answer is the reason I wrote the piece.

The disarmament proposal presented to Hamas by mediators in Cairo envisions weapons being handed over to a yet-to-be-formed Palestinian police force. Trump's July announcement described an International Stabilization Force working alongside a new Palestinian police force once disarmament is complete. Nickolay Mladenov, the high representative for Gaza on the Board of Peace, told the Security Council in May that no Palestinian armed group would be required to transfer weapons to Israel, and that decommissioning would be gradual, sequenced and Palestinian-led.

So the plan does not envisage the existing police taking custody of anything. It envisages a new force, not yet formed, replacing them.

Which produces a question I have not seen asked anywhere, and I want to be careful about how I put it, because I am not alleging anything.

Is the systematic killing of the current police command connected, in any way, to a plan that requires that command to be replaced?

I do not know. There may be no connection at all. It may be that these men were exactly what Israel says they were and that the timing means nothing. But the two facts sit beside each other in the record, a plan that requires a new police force, and the serial killing of the commanders of the old one, and nobody in a position to answer has been asked to.

Four. What is Hamas actually offering, and has anyone tested it?

The shorthand that Hamas has agreed to disarm is not accurate, and the imprecision helps nobody. Its stated position is that it will not surrender its weapons, but that only the police will carry weapons in Gaza. In private, negotiators have signalled willingness to hand over heavy weaponry, missiles, rocket launchers, while refusing small arms and maps of the tunnel network.

That is a real distinction and it is either a serious opening or a stalling device. Which it is could be established by testing it. Has it been tested? Was a heavy-weapons handover attempted and refused, or was the offer set aside because Mladenov's framework requires full decommissioning with no exceptions and no carve-outs?

Five. Is the resulting disorder being used as an argument?

When a police force loses three senior commanders in under a month, order deteriorates. That is not a contested claim; it is what happens anywhere.

And deteriorating order becomes evidence, in briefings, in editorials, that the territory is ungovernable, that no handover is possible, that reconstruction would be wasted. Is that connection being made? By whom? Has anyone in authority been asked whether the second follows from the first?

Six. Why do these strikes keep landing next to diplomatic moments?

Abu Kamil on the day the fourteen-day roadmap deadline expired, one day after a bombing pause ended. The police headquarters two days after the American envoy left, with a displacement-camp cafe struck within hours of his departure.

Coincidence is entirely possible. Wars have a tempo and it does not follow a diplomat's calendar. But the pattern has been noticed by reporters on the ground, and whether anyone has put it to a spokesman on the record is a question with an answer.

Seven. What is a condemnation for?

France, Italy, Britain and Germany jointly demanded Israel halt a major West Bank settlement project. Israel's foreign minister dismissed it. Turkey, Egypt and Qatar condemned the Gaza strikes.

So: what is the mechanism? When a demand is refused, what happens on the second day? Is there a step after the statement? Has any government named one publicly? And if there is no step, what is the statement for?

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The thing I cannot get past

I have written this in questions because I am not in Gaza, I have not seen any intelligence, and I will not tell you I know things I do not know.

But one fact requires no interpretation.

A man was killed. Another man was appointed to do his job. Six days later that man was killed too, along with his director of operations, the woman who ran the women's police division, and a thirteen-year-old girl who was in a park.

You do not need a position on this conflict to find that arrangement unbearable. You need only to imagine being the person asked to take the job next.

Somebody is being asked. This week, in Gaza City, a person is being told the position is vacant again, and is working out what to say, and has a family.

That person exists. Nobody will publish his name until afterwards.

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What would settle it

I would rather end with a test than a verdict.

Publish the finding. Not the sources, the determination. If these men were military commanders, that conclusion rests on intelligence which can be summarised. It has not been. It could be tomorrow.

Name the interim authority. If the existing police cannot function and the new force does not yet exist, something must hold the gap. If a plan exists it can be described. If it does not, that is also an answer.

Set out the handover mechanism. Which body takes custody, where, under whose supervision, and on what schedule. The plan says a new Palestinian police force. When is it formed, by whom, and from which personnel?

Test the heavy-weapons offer. Hamas says it will not surrender small arms but has signalled openness on missiles and launchers. Either that is real or it is not, and the way to find out is to try it and publish the result.

None of that requires anyone to change their view of this conflict. Four specific disclosures, each of which could be made this week. None has been.

Until then we are left with what is on the record: a police chief, a replacement, and six days.

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A. Kade writes The Kade Frequency, an investigative publication on institutional power, financial capture, and the long project of making democracy something real.

No sponsors. No filters. No propaganda.

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Sources and references

25 July. The killing of Brigadier-General Abdel-Nasser al-Maqadma, head of police in northern Gaza and governor of the northern governorate, in Sheikh Radwan; the Israeli army's claim that he was a member of Hamas's military wing; and Gaza's Interior Ministry's statement that Israel is deliberately targeting the police force to spread chaos, were reported by Al Jazeera on 25 July 2026.

30 July agreement. The agreement by Hamas and other Palestinian factions to a document setting out a disarmament plan, announced by President Trump; the stipulation that a precise roadmap be prepared within fourteen days subject to an international verification body and the agreement of all parties; and Trump's statement that Israel would withdraw and be replaced by an International Stabilization Force working with a "new Palestinian police force" once disarmament was complete, were reported by Al Jazeera on 30 and 31 July 2026, which also noted that Israel had not publicly agreed to the proposal and that Hamas said it would implement no part of the deal unless Israeli forces fulfilled their withdrawal obligations.

13 August. The killing of Colonel Jamal Abu Kamil, 43, head of the civil police force in Gaza City, by a drone firing three missiles at his vehicle on al-Rashid Street, injuring two others, was reported by Al Jazeera citing Gaza's Ministry of Interior. The Israeli military said it targeted him to "remove a threat," claiming without providing evidence that he was a Hamas commander; Gaza's police responded that he "committed to his police duties and has no connection to other activities." The killing came one day after Israel ended a week-long pause in air raids. The same report records a strike on a motorbike in Khan Younis the same day.

17 August and the Kushner talks. Al Jazeera's Palestine weekly of 25 August 2026 reports the two working groups, Kushner's remarks on imminent threats, the strike within hours of his departure on a cafe at the Gaza City port killing at least seven including a child, and the return to pre-ceasefire rules of engagement described by senior Israeli officers. Gaza Ministry of Health figures of 1,288 killed and 4,290 wounded since the October ceasefire, within a cumulative toll above 73,000 since October 2023, are from the same source.

19 August. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, based on its field researchers, reports that at approximately 14:25 an Israeli drone fired at least one missile at a room temporarily used as the Municipal Police headquarters in central Gaza City, killing eight police personnel and a girl who was in the Municipal Park, and injuring eighteen, several critically. PCHR identifies the dead as including Brigadier Ayman Mahmoud Mohammed Jendiyah, 47, acting Director of Gaza Governorate Police following the assassination of Colonel Jamal Abu Kamil on 13 August, and Colonel Osama Hashem Isma'il al-Hajin, 43, Director of Operations. PCHR characterises the strike as part of a systematic pattern of targeting police and security personnel and as an escalating policy aimed at undermining the internal security system and creating a security vacuum. Al Jazeera reported the women's police chief and a 13-year-old girl among the dead, two days after Kushner ended his trip. Middle East Eye reported at least ten killed and fifteen wounded. Middle East Monitor reported that Hamas rejected Israeli claims the strike targeted its armed wing. Casualty figures range from nine to ten killed and fifteen to eighteen wounded across these accounts; this piece gives the range.

The disarmament framework. The proposal presented to Hamas by mediators in Cairo, envisioning all armed groups gradually handing over weapons, requiring heavy weaponry and tunnel maps within ninety days, including a buy-back programme for personal weapons, and envisioning the weapons being handed over to a yet-to-be-formed Palestinian police force, was reported by The Times of Israel citing two Arab diplomats. Nickolay Mladenov's fifteen-point roadmap, his May 2026 Security Council briefing clarifying that no Palestinian armed group would be required to transfer weapons to Israel and that decommissioning would be gradual, sequenced and Palestinian-led, and his statement that the framework requires "full decommissioning by Hamas and every armed group, with no exceptions and no carve-outs," were reported by Al Jazeera and The Times of Israel.

Hamas's position. Al Jazeera reported in June 2026 that Hamas says it will not hand over its weapons and that the fate of its arsenal will be decided after discussions with other Palestinian factions, while stating that only police will carry weapons in Gaza. Hugh Lovatt of the European Council on Foreign Relations has said Hamas officials have privately indicated openness to a decommissioning process for offensive weapons, while assessing that the group will not give up small arms or hand over tunnel maps.

The 2025 executions. Between 19 September and 21 October 2025, units of Gaza's Ministry of Interior, including the Gaza Police Arrow Unit and the Rad'a internal security force, carried out a wave of public executions and extrajudicial killings, with at least thirty-three people killed. The executions were documented in video footage circulated on social media and in international reporting, including a public execution outside al-Shifa Hospital on 21 September 2025. Further executions of captured fighters occurred during the October 2025 conflict with the Doghmush clan.

International response. The joint demand by France, Italy, Britain and Germany that Israel halt a major West Bank settlement project, Israel's rejection of it, and the condemnations by Turkey, Egypt and Qatar were reported by Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera.

On the legal question. The status of police forces operating under a governing armed group is genuinely contested in international humanitarian law. Civilian police performing ordinary law-enforcement functions retain civilian protection; police incorporated into armed forces or directly participating in hostilities do not. This piece does not resolve that question and does not claim to.

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This piece advances no conclusion about the lawfulness of the strikes described, and alleges no connection between them and the disarmament framework. It sets out the documented sequence, states the Israeli justification, records conduct by the institution concerned that complicates any simple account, and identifies four specific disclosures which would materially answer the questions raised and which have not been made.

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