The IDF announced that it had verified the identities of a total of 31 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives killed in an airstrike on Saturday that targeted a school in Gaza City. The site had been identified as an “active” Hamas and Islamic Jihad command room, based out of a mosque in the al-Taba’een school complex, in Gaza City’s Daraj neighborhood.
IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that according to “various intelligence indications,” there was a “high probability” that the commander of Islamic Jihad’s Central Camps Brigade Ashraf Juda was at the school when it was struck, though it was unclear whether he had been was killed in the strike.
“Increasingly in recent months Hamas has focused on exploiting school buildings, often where civilians are sheltering inside, to use them as military facilities, command and control centers, for storing weapons, and to execute terrorist attacks,” Hagari said in a video statement.
“Over the last few weeks, our intelligence has been closely monitoring an active Hamas and Islamic Jihad military facility, where approximately two dozen Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants were operating,” Hagari continued. “After we received clear intelligence of the threat posed by these terrorists and in accordance with international humanitarian law, we took numerous steps to mitigate the risk to civilians, including using aerial surveillance prior to the strike and selecting very precise munitions to avoid civilian casualties.”
“Early this morning, the IDF conducted a precision strike against the terrorists in one specific building of the compound. An area that, according to our intelligence, no women and children were present,” Hagari added.
Hamas had initially claimed the death count was over 100 but revised it down to 93 people killed in the strike, though they had only recovered 75 bodies as of Monday. Hagari noted that the Hamas account “does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, and they do not match the information held by the IDF.”
The IDF produced video footage after the strike showing no significant damage to the surrounding school complex. It also said that the missiles “could not have caused the damage that corresponds to the casualty reports of the government media office in Gaza.”
On Saturday, the UN Human Rights Office condemned the airstrike, citing the Hamas claim of 93 killed without acknowledging that any Hamas terrorists were killed. The UN condemned the attacks on schools without addressing the Hamas use of the civilian facilities.
Most media followed suit, citing the Hamas claims without verification or stipulations.
Many of the schools and hospital targeted by the IDF were funded and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) which has been accused of being complicit with Hamas. While denying these accusations, the UN announced last week that it was firing nine UNRWA employees on the grounds that they “may have been involved” in Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel. Israel has produced videos and other evidence that 19 UNRWA staff members were directly involved in the massacre. Israel has provided the UN with detailed information regarding over 100 UNRWA employees who were direct members of Hamas.
