The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released the names of 12 additional terrorists who were killed in an airstrike on Saturday on a military installation at the Al-Taba’een school in Gaza, bringing the total number to 31.
The IDF has pushed back strongly against claims by Hamas that 100 people were killed in the attack, implying that many were civilians. It has released analysis, including video, of the attack, arguing that precise munitions were used to strike a building being used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists in a compound where a school had been located, and that measures had been taken beforehand to mitigate the risk to civilians in the area of the school.
In a statement, the IDF and the Israel Security Agency (ISA, or Shin Bet, or Shabak) released 12 additional names:
אומתה זהותם של 31 מחבלי חמאס וגא״פ שחוסלו בתקיפת המפקדה הצבאית בבית הספר ‘אל-תאבעין׳ עד כה.
לאחר מחקר מודיעיני בצה”ל ובשב״כ, נחשפים שמותיהם של 12 מחבלים נוספים שחוסלו בתקיפה בשבת האחרונה (10.8.24) במפקדה הצבאית בבית הספר ‘אל-תאבעין׳.
עד כה אומתה זהותם של 31 מחבלים שחוסלו בתקיפה pic.twitter.com/vlWjLHUsnc
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 12, 2024
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer told reporters on Monday that the airstrike “could not have caused the amount of damage or the number of casualties that have been reported” by Hamas, and likened its claims to the false claim in October that Israel had killed 500 people in an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City.
In reality, an errant Islamic Jihad rocket hit the hospital parking lot, resulting in far fewer casualties than those Hamas reported.
Mencer noted that Hamas’s strategy in the war is to use civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals and schools, as military installations, converting them from their civilian purposes with the goal of encouraging civilians to be killed.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
