CNN Reports IDF Strike on Hamas HQ as ‘Israel Strike on UN School That Left Dozens Dead’

CNN is reporting an Israeli strike on a Hamas headquarters inside a United National Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) school compound in Gaza as an “Israel strike on UN school that left dozens dead.”

The main focus of the CNN story is the claim that American munitions were used in the strike, from which CNN evidently wishes readers to conclude that the United States shares moral culpability in an Israeli atrocity.

However, the airstrike, as described by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), was actually a targeted attack on a building that had been used as a base by Hamas terrorists, who likely accounted for most of the “dozens” killed in the airstrike.

Notably, the story cites the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health, which has fabricated stories of atrocities since the beginning of the war. “At least 45 people were killed in the strike, a spokesperson from Gaza’s Ministry of Health told CNN,” the story says.

CNN does not inform readers that the Ministry of Health is run by Hamas, nor does CNN provide any information about how many, if any, of the dead were civilians, and how many were terrorists.

In a statement, the IDF said:

A short while ago, IAF fighter jets, directed by IDF intelligence and the ISA, conducted a precise strike on a Hamas compound embedded inside an UNRWA school in the area of Nuseirat.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who belonged to the Nukhba Forces and took part in the murderous attack on communities in southern Israel on October 7th were operating in the compound.

The terrorists directed terror from the area of the school while exploiting it and using it as a shelter. Several terrorists who planned to carry out terror attacks and promote terrorist activities against IDF troops in the immediate time frame were eliminated in the strike.

Before the strike, a number of steps were taken to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians during the strike, including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.

The Times of Israel reported that the IDF believed 20-30 terrorists were in the compound at the time of the strike. An Israeli government spokesman described the compound as a “forward operating base” for Hamas, and noted that the IDF had called off the airstrike twice already because it wanted to be meticulous about avoiding risks to civilians.

Palestinian terrorists routinely hide in schools and hospitals because they know that if Israel attacks them there, they can use those attacks as propaganda, and that there are enough credulous or openly anti-Israel media outlets in the western world that will run their stories without waiting to check the facts.

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 recent e-book, “The Zionist Conspiracy (and how to join it),” now available on Audible. He is also the author of the e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.