Hamas Using Human Shields in Gaza Strip

Jerusalem, 10 October, 2023 (TPS) -- Hamas continues to use Gazan civilians as human shields by building its terrorist infrastructure in densely populated civilian areas, the Israel Defense Forces said on Tuesday, sharing evidence of the Islamist group’s facilities located near medical clinics, schools and U.N. buildings.

“Hamas infrastructure is deliberately embedded within civilian areas and in proximity to international assets, using the population as human shields,” said the report by the IDF International Cooperation Division.

“In order to mitigate harm to noncombatants, the IDF carries out surgical strikes,” it added.

The report included aerial maps of Gaza City’s Rimal residential neighborhood, showing Hamas facilities in or near commercial buildings, pharmacies, welfare offices, mosques and other public facilities.

Placing weapons caches, command and control centers, tunnel shafts, rocket launchers and other military infrastructure in close proximity to private homes, schools, hospitals and mosques and civilian areas violates international humanitarian law.

The Israel Defense Forces continued to pound Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday as the war sparked by the Palestinian terrorist group’s brutal Oct. 7 attack on the Jewish state entered its fourth day.

The military said it struck the shaft of a tunnel and other assets Hamas used to penetrate Israeli territory on Saturday and indiscriminately butcher at least 900 Israeli men, women and children.

Israel Air Force fighter jets also struck a mosque containing a Hamas command center used to coordinate this weekend’s attack. The air force also carried out “widespread” strikes on weapons depots and other terrorist infrastructure.

As of 7 a.m. Tuesday, the IDF had conducted five waves of airstrikes in Gaza, attacking more than 1,500 terrorist targets, including attack tunnels, rocket launching sites, and command and control centers.

More than 400 Hamas terrorists have been killed inside the Gaza Strip so far, the report noted.

This is in addition to an estimated terrorist 1,500 terrorists killed inside Israel since Saturday.

IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht on Tuesday urged Gazans to leave the Strip immediately amid the intensifying war with Hamas.

Hecht’s warning came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday night vowed that “every place in which Hamas hides will become a city of ruins.

“This war was forced upon us by a despicable enemy, human animals celebrating the murder of women, children and the elderly,” the Prime Minister said in an address to the nation.