(Communicated by the IDF Spokesman)
Filmed footage taken on Monday shows a terrorist cell captured on tape while launching mortar bombs from an elementary school for boys in the town of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.
The footage, taken by IDF aircraft on Monday, October 29, 2007 at approximately 9:00 am, shows three terrorists preparing and then launching the mortars from the school, which they used for cover immediately afterwards. The IDF targeted and hit the terrorists as they were fleeing the school premises.
The terrorist organizations, headed and controlled by Hamas, constantly and cynically use the uninvolved Palestinian civilians and children as human shields, as seen in the released footage. This puts uninvolved Palestinians in danger. The responsibility lies with the terrorist organizations alone.
Ban Ki-moon condemns rocket attack from Gaza school run by UNRWA (8 Nov 2007):
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has deplored a rocket attack against Israel that was launched from a school in the Gaza Strip run by the United Nations agency tasked with assisting Palestinian refugees.
UN spokesperson Marie Okabe told reporters that Mr. Ban had asked the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) to conduct a full investigation of last week’s incident.
Mr. Gershon Kedar, Israel’s delegate to the Fourth Committee, told the committee: "Just last week, terrorists in the Gaza Strip fired mortars from the yard of an UNRWA elementary school in Beit Hanoun. The Israeli military refrained from responding while the launching cell was in the school, in order to avoid civilian causalities. Regrettably, the abuse of human shields by Palestinian terrorists and the violation of a UN installation for terrorist purposes has not yet been clearly condemned by the UN."
- Full text of statement
Woman examines damage to her home in Netiv Ha'asara after direct hit by mortar shell fired from Gaza. The grandmother and baby granddaughter who were in the living room at the time narrowly escaped injury.
(Photo: Rafael Ben-Ari/Chameleons Eye)
Identified mortar bomb hits by month (2007)
