IDF names 12 more terrorists killed in Gaza school strike, no answer on civilians

The IDF on Monday named 12 more terrorists who it says were killed in its airstrike on the Al-Taabin school complex in the Daraj-Tuffah area of northern Gaza on Saturday, increasing the total number of named terrorists to 31.

Initially, the IDF said that it could name at least 19 of 24 terrorists that it said it had killed and had known were for sure on location from its intelligence collection sources.

Eventually, the IDF added that it had probably killed Islamic Jihad‘s brigade commander for central Gaza and disputed Hamas’s claims that the airstrike had also killed over 90 civilians.

Civilian casualty numbers haven’t been addressed

However, the IDF has not addressed how many civilians may have been killed, only saying that it would make no sense for its three precise smaller bombs to have been able to kill that many people, terrorists, civilians, or otherwise.

At the same time, on Sunday, the Jerusalem Post confronted the IDF with specific claims from Palestinian West Bank parliament member Mustafa Barghouti, who said that two of the alleged terrorists who the IDF said it had killed at the school had been killed elsewhere and that other alleged terrorists listed were minors.

The IDF said it did not yet have information to address those claims while still maintaining a general denial of any wrongdoing.

Earlier, IDF Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani had also said that Hamas and Islamic Jihad were actively using the school and a nearby mosque to plan attacks against the IDF.

However, the military said it had known that the civilians were being sheltered nearby, and avoiding harming them was why it had used smaller and more precise bombs.

Also, the IDF published a video showing that the compound where civilians were said to be was still intact. Yet, on social media, there were videos published showing chaotic scenes of at least some number of dead women and children.

Most of the world widely condemned Israel for the strike despite its explanations, while the US said it was very concerned but would await an Israeli investigation.

JPost