The Israel Defense Forces and Shin Bet has announced confirmation of the deaths of 31 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives so far who were eliminated Saturday in a strike on a Gaza school that was transformed into a terrorist command and control center.
Intelligence research by the IDF and Shin Bet added 12 more names to the initial list of 19 terrorists who were identified operating at the Al Taba’een School, which was embedded inside a mosque in the school compound in Gaza City.
“These terrorists operated to advance and carry out attacks against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel from inside the compound,” the IDF noted.
The strike was carried out using three precise munitions, which, according to professional analysis, cannot cause the amount of damage that was reported by the Hamas-run Government Information Office in Gaza.
Furthermore, no severe damage was caused to the compound where the terrorists were situated, as can be seen in a video filmed following the strike, clearly showing no damage to the minaret of the mosque and minimal damage to the adjacent building.
Prior to the strike, numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of a small warhead, aerial surveillance, and intelligence information.
A Legitimate Target Under International Law
That having been said, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer pointed out in a briefing Monday afternoon that once a school is being used as a military command and control center, it is no longer a school and instead becomes a legitimate military target under international law.
“It’s incorrect to call it a school compound,” Mencer said. “This was a site used, yes, as a civilian shelter but it’s a site that we attacked which served the Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations as a shelter and as a command center from which various attacks were planned and advanced against the IDF troops and Israelis.
“We have a duty to defend our country.
Hamas Sees Harm to Civilians as a Strategy
“This reflects a systematic pattern of exploiting the population and civilian infrastructure for terror purposes. These terrorist organizations have established in Gaza a vast network of tunnels which pass under homes, under hospitals, under mosques, under schools, and under UN (United Nations) facilities, and they’re used for terrorist operations, for the storage of weaponry and for imprisoning our own Israeli hostages,” Mencer reminded.
“Israel sees harm caused to civilians as a tragedy, an absolute tragedy. We do our utmost to avoid any harm to civilians. It is in the nature of the way that Hamas has been fighting us that some civilian deaths are inevitable because of the way that Hamas fights us. Hamas, of course, sees harm to civilians as a strategy. Hamas is not upset that there are civilian casualties; they’re only upset there are not ten times more civilian casualties.”
The data published by Hamas officials, he emphasized, cannot be trusted.
“We say this again: Hamas are liars. They are systematic liars. The terrorist organization that burned whole families alive and then denied that these things happened, it is no longer a surprise to us here in Israel that their figures cannot be trusted.”
