- Title: Explosions hit Gaza police checkpoints, two dead - officials
- Date: 27th August 2019
- Summary: FIRE TRUCK AT SCENE, PEOPLE STANDING IN FRONT OF TRUCK
- Embargoed: 10th September 2019 23:49
- Keywords: Palestinians Gaza city explosions two dead Israel Explosions hit two police checkpoints
- Location: GAZA CITY, GAZA
- City: GAZA CITY, GAZA
- Country: Palestinian Territories
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace
- Reuters ID: LVA003ATZW4ZR
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: CONTAINS GRAPHIC IMAGES
Explosions hit two police checkpoints in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday (August 27), killing two officers and wounding several other Palestinians, the Hamas-run interior ministry said, declaring a state of emergency over the incidents.
A spokesman for the Israeli military said he knew of no involvement by it in the back-to-back incidents in Gaza city, which came at a time of simmering cross-border confrontations with Hamas, the Palestinian enclave's ruling Islamists.
The first blast destroyed a motorcycle as it passed a police checkpoint with two riders aboard, witnesses said. Two policemen were killed and a third Palestinian wounded. It was not immediately clear if the riders were among the casualties.
The second explosion, less than an hour later, wounded several people at a police checkpoint elsewhere in the city, the interior ministry said. The second incident prompted the ministry to declare a state of emergency throughout Gaza, putting security forces on alert for further violence.
Hamas, which took over Gaza in a 2007 civil war with the forces of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has at times faced internal opposition from more stringent Islamist militants aligned with al Qaeda or Islamic State.
(Production: Mohammad Shana, Fadi Shana, Arafat Barbakh, Suheir Sheikh) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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