In the concurrent Khan Younis operation, the IDF is destroying Hamas sites and terrorists while residents curse Hamas.
By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News
A Hamas rocket destroyed a Gazan school when falling short of its target in Israel, the IDF announced Tuesday.
The terror organization misfired several rockets from central Gaza, and one hit the educational institution in the area of Nuseirat, said the report.
It is not an unusual occurrence for Hamas and other terror groups in the coastal enclave, such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
The IDF has estimated that some 20% of the rockets they launch indiscriminately at Israeli towns and cities land on their own territory, killing unknown numbers of their citizens.
The most well-known incident occurred barely ten days after the Israel-Hamas war began in October, when a PIJ rocket fired from a cemetery behind Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital landed in the medical center’s empty parking lot.
Hamas immediately charged that an Israeli airstrike had killed hundreds of people at the site, a claim that the IDF proved to be a lie several hours later.
Months after completing operations in the city, the IDF re-entered Khan Younis on Monday, a day after warning the city’s civilians to flee specific neighborhoods in the humanitarian zone in the city because they were being used as terror bases.
Embedding military sites in civilian areas is in contravention of international law, and turns them into legitimate targets.
Ground forces, including elements of the armored corps, paratroopers and commando units, are working in cooperation with the air force to eliminate the terror threat in the eastern part of the city.
According to an IDF spokesperson, “During the attack, Air Force aircraft attacked over 50 terrorist infrastructures, including munitions depots, observation posts, buildings used by Hamas terrorists, and tunnel routes in the area.”
Hamas announced that some 70 people have been killed and 200 wounded so far in the incursion, without saying how many of the victims were combatants, as per their usual practice.
“It’s like doomsday,” one resident told Reuters through a chat app.
Others expressed their anger at Hamas for what they are going through.
Referring to the terror chief Yahya Sinwar, one said, “Sinwar, in the name of Allah, stop the war in Gaza! We have no life left…. Sinwar, we’ve been destroyed, our houses our destroyed. You sit in the tunnels, eating and drinking, and the people are destroyed.”
Another went even further, telling the news agency, “All the people of the Gaza Strip, all of them, except for those who benefit from it and they are a tiny minority, hope for the destruction of Hamas. In all sincerity, we hope for the destruction of Hamas as soon as possible.”