IDF Spokesperson, Rear Admiral Daniel: “Hamas has focused on exploiting school buildings"

since the beginning of this war the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations have been systematically abusing civilian population and infrastructures in Gaza for their terrorist activities against the state of Israel this includes Hamas massive network of underground tunnels which go under towns hospitals mosks schools and un facilities and are used by terrorists to command attacks store weapons and hold Israeli hostages captive it also includes hospitals across the Gaza Strip which have been repeatedly infiltrated and weaponized by Kamas and Islamic Jihad and where terrorists tunnel shafts were found 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 Terror attacks over the last few weeks our intelligence has been closely monitoring an active Kamas and Islamic Jihad military facility where approximately two dozen Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants were operating the names of 19 of these terrorists operating in this compound were published by us today we also have intelligence indications that the terrorist ashra Judah Islamic jihad's Brigade commander of the central camps was at the compound this military facility was embedded inside the altab school building in Gaza City 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 terrorist in one specific building of the compound an area that according to our intelligence no women and children were present you can see in a video published by us today that the compound is still intact and that there is no significant cratering or damage to the main structure of the compound this pattern of systematic abuse of schools for military activities by Hamas and Islamic Jihad endangers both gazans and Israeli civilians it must be condemned by the International Community following the strike the Hamas government information office in Gaza published an unverified casualty account which was then shared around the world these figures do not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants and they do not match the information held by the IDF The Mastermind behind October 7th the day where Hamas brutally massacred innocent Israelis and started this War and the man last week appointed as Kamas political leader stated himself that a higher Palestinian discount helps Hamas in its War goals where Israel sees harm to civilian as a tragedy Hamas sees harms to civilians as a strategy the IDF will continue to operate in accordance with International humanitarian law in order to dism Hamas military capabilities and in order to bring back home all our 115 hostages men women children and the elderly who are being held in captive for over 300 days in horrific conditions we are operating to create the conditions to bring them back home we call on the International Community to do everything they can to fulfill this School