From the Liveblog of
Friday, June 7, 2024
IDF: Hamas members killed in command room in a container at UN school in Gaza City’s Shati camp
Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian is The Times of Israel's military correspondent
Earlier today a cell of Hamas operatives gathered at a United Nations school in Gaza City’s Shati camp were killed in an airstrike, the military says.
According to the IDF, the Hamas members were operating from inside a container within the ground of UNRWA’s Asmaa school.
The container was being used as a command room by the operatives and a meeting point for members of the terror group’s internal security forces, the IDF says,
The military says that the operatives killed in the strike were planning attacks against Israeli forces in Gaza in the “immediate timeframe.” It does not specify how many Hamas operatives were killed.
Prior to the strike, the IDF says it carried out “many steps to reduce the chance of harming civilians.” The strike itself was carried out using “precision munitions,” it says.
The IDF says Hamas was taking advantage of the school for terror activity, and it “systematically, intentionally and strategically places its infrastructure and operates from within civilian areas, in complete violation of international law and while putting the lives of [Palestinian civilians] at risk.”
Yesterday the IDF carried out an airstrike on what it said was a compound used by dozens of Hamas fighters inside a United Nations school in central Gaza. The IDF said it took extensive precautions to reduce harm to civilians in the “precise strike” on the compound embedded within a UNRWA school in Nuseirat, where 20-30 terrorists, some of whom participated in the October 7 onslaught, were gathered.
It has since named nine of the Hamas operatives it says were killed in the strike.
