Bassem Ghaben, director of the Israeli-controlled Karem Abu Salem border crossing, worked to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike has killed a Palestinian border crossing director in the southern Gaza Strip, according to Palestinian officials and Hamas.

Bassem Ghaben, the director of the Israeli-controlled Kareem Abu Salem The crossing point – called Kerem Shalom in Israel – was killed along with three other people by Israeli fire, Gaza’s health and border authorities said on Thursday.

He was working to ease the flow of humanitarian aid into the enclave through the border crossing that opened on Friday, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said, reporting from the southern city of Rafah, about 3 km (1.86 miles) from the checkpoint.

Mahmoud said the attack showed that the Israeli military was targeting not only infrastructure and homes, but also places where Palestinians “need humanitarian assistance, which they need to survive.”

“This is part of an ongoing systematic campaign of destruction,” our correspondent said. “It is unclear whether the transition will continue to work.”

The Israeli military said it was not involved in the Karem Abu Salem attack and said it was not “familiar” with the incident.

On Friday, the temporary reopening of the border crossing at the southern tip of the Gaza Strip on the border with Israel was approved to increase the flow of aid to Gaza, where 1.9 million people are displaced and in urgent need of food, water and medicine.

So far, aid has been limited to the Rafah border crossing with Egypt.

“Pure Destruction”

According to the Israeli army, the killing of the border chief came as Israeli attacks bombed all areas of the besieged strip, hitting 230 targets in just 24 hours.

The heaviest bombings took place in the northern part of the enclave, where there are no functioning hospitals. The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that only nine of 36 health facilities in the enclave were still partially functioning, and all were in the southern Gaza Strip.

There were also attacks in the southern city of Khan Younis, killing 55 people in the last 24 hours, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. Israel has now ordered Palestinians to leave large parts of the southern city, sparking widespread fear, Mahmoud reported.

Israeli attacks have hit parts of Rafah, where most displaced Palestinians have sought refuge.

An elderly Palestinian in Rafah told Al Jazeera he had never seen the level of violence in Gaza in his entire life. “I am 76 years old and have experienced many wars and conflicts. But I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “The sheer scale of the destruction and systematic killing of civilians is shocking.”

Ten weeks of Israeli attacks have killed more than 20,000 Palestinians, including 8,000 children. Rescuers have warned that the ongoing bombardment means they are unable to reach many of the wounded in northern Gaza. Palestinian health officials said they lacked basic medicine and equipment to treat the injured and sick.