Israel Shows Proof of 19 Terrorists Killed at School as Hamas Claims 100 Dead

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released the names and photographs of 19 terrorists that were at a school compound that it struck in Gaza Saturday, amid unverified claims by Hamas that 100 people were killed.

IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a statement:

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’s massive network of underground tunnels, which go under towns, hospitals, mosques, schools, and UN facilities, and are use by terrorists to command attacks, store weapons, and hold Israeli hostages captive. It also include hospitals across the Gaza Strip, which have been repeatedly infiltrated and weaponized by Hamas 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 Hamas and Islamic Jihad facility, where approximately two dozen Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants were operating. The names of 19 of the terrorists who were operating in this compound were published by us today. We also have intelligence indications that the terrorist Ashraf Juda Islamic Jihad’s brigade commander of the  central camps, was at the compound. This military facility was embedded inside the Al-Taba’een 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 terrorists 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 teh 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-run government information office in Gaza published an unverified casualty count which was then shared around the world. These figures do not distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, and they do not match the information held by the IDF.

Yayha Sinwar, the mastermind behind October 7th, the day where Hamas brutally massacred innocent Israelis, and started this war, and the man last week appointed as Hamas’s political leader, stated himself that the higher Palestinian death count helps Hamas in its war cause. Where Israel sees harm to civilians as a tragedy, Hamas sees harm to civilians as a strategy.

The IDF will operate in accordance with international humanitarian law in order to dismantle Hamas’s 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 [sic] 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 everything they can to fulfill this call.

Hamas has a habit of claiming that large numbers of civilians have been killed at hospitals and schools, knowing that the media will parrot those claims, and that Israel will face condemnation from the international community.

Indeed, Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris responded by reiterating her call for a ceasefire and hostage deal — one that Israel has agreed to in principle, but which Hamas has rejected for months, hoping to use the hostages to end the war victorious.

Earlier in the war, Hamas falsely claimed that 500 people had been killed by an Israeli airstrike on Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. In reality, an errant Islamic Jihad rocket hit the parking lot at the hospital, killing fewer than 50 people.

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.