Some 15 terrorists were killed on Tuesday in an Israeli air strike on a Hamas command centre located in a United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) school in Nuseirat in central Gaza.
Among those killed in the strike were members of Hamas’s Nukhba force who participated in the October 7 massacre, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The incident was yet another example of Hamas’s cynical use of Gaza’s civilians as human shields, according to the IDF.
“The Hamas terrorist organization systematically exploits international institutions and uses the civilian population as human shields in order to perpetrate terrorist attacks against the State of Israel,” the IDF said.
Throughout the war against Hamas, which is now in its seventh month, Israeli soldiers have found missiles and military gear hidden among UN relief supplies in Gaza.
In January, Israeli soldiers in Khan Yunis destroyed an underground weapons factory belonging to Palestinian Islamic Jihad where arms were found hidden in sacks belonging to Unrwa.
In February, the IDF announced the discovery of a massive Hamas tunnel complex underneath Unrwa’s central headquarters in Gaza.
That same month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a visiting delegation of UN ambassadors that Unrwa had been “totally infiltrated” by the terrorist group.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant told journalists in February that the Jewish state had intelligence showing that 30 Unrwa employees took part in the October 7 terror attack.
Netanyahu called for the UN agency to be replaced.
“I think it’s time that the international community and the United Nations itself understand that Unrwa’s mission has to end,” he said.
“It has been in the service of Hamas [in] its schools and in many other things.
"I say this with great regret because we hoped that there would be an objective and constructive body to offer aid. We need such a body today in Gaza. But Unrwa is not that body. It has to be replaced by some organization or organizations that will do that job.”
