Israel Strikes Hamas Terrorists in Gaza Strip, Says Aimed to Reduce Civilian Injuries

An Israeli Air Force aircraft on Saturday attacked several Hamas terrorists in Gaza. The country said before the attack, it took steps to reduce civilian injuries. Israel said the Hamas terrorists were operating in a complex previously used as a school in Gaza.

“Air Force aircraft under the direction of the Air Force and the Southern Command attacked terrorists of the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, who were operating in the command and control complex, which was previously used as the “Ahmed Elkard” school in the central area of ​​the Gaza Strip,” the Israeli Air Force wrote in an X post.

“Before the attack, many steps were taken to reduce the chance of harming civilians, including the use of precision weaponry, air strikes and additional intelligence information,” it added.

“The terrorist organization Hamas systematically violates international law, brutally exploiting civilian institutions and the population as human shields for terrorist acts. The IDF will continue to act resolutely against the terrorist organizations that use schools and civilian institutions as shelter,” it added.

On October 3, Israel killed Abdel-Aziz Salha, a West Bank Hamas militant who had been jailed for life for taking part in the lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah in 2000 but later deported to Gaza in a prisoner swap.

Salha was killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent inside Al-Aklouk School, which shelters displaced Palestinians, in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip earlier on Thursday, medics said.

Separately on October 4, the Israeli military announced it had killed three senior Hamas officials in an airstrike that targeted them in Gaza three months ago.

It identified the three men as Rawhi Mushtaha, a confidant of Hamas Gaza chief Yehya Al-Sinwar, Sameh Al-Saraj, a senior security official and Sami Odeh, Hamas’ general security service commander.

The same day, an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed five Palestinians, while another airstrike on Nuseirat killed one man and wounded several others.

On October 7, Palestinians in the Gaza Strip will mark the first anniversary of the war, with little hope of an end soon to the fighting, as Israel begins a separate ground offensive in Lebanon against Hamas’s Iranian-backed ally Hezbollah.

Hezbollah has been firing rockets into Israel in support of Hamas in the war in Gaza, which started after Hamas-led militants stormed through Israeli towns on October 7 last year.

Israel says 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage in that attack, triggering the war that has devastated Gaza, displacing most of its 2.3 million population and killing more than 41,700 people, according to Gaza health authorities.