(Bloomberg) -- A deadly Israeli strike on Gaza City that drew international condemnation was aimed at a Hamas “command and control center” embedded within a school and adjacent mosque, Israel’s military said.
Hamas authorities in Gaza estimated about 100 people were killed in Saturday’s missile attack. The figures couldn’t be independently verified and Hamas authorities don’t distinguish between civilian and combatant casualties.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, who’s running to replace President Joe Biden in the White House in November, rebuked Israel for civilian casualties while affirming its “right to go after the terrorists that are Hamas.”
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“Yet again, far too many civilians have been killed,” she told reporters Saturday during a campaign swing in the western US. “We need a hostage deal, and we need a cease-fire. The deal needs to get done, and it needs to get done now.”
The Israel Defense Forces said the air strike, using three precision-guided bombs, targeted “approximately two dozen” members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad who it described as operating within the Al-Taba’een school. It named 19 operatives who it said were killed.
In a video statement, chief IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said an Islamic Jihad commander, Asraf Juda, may also have been present at the compound.
According to IDF intelligence, no women or children were present in the part of the compound that was struck, Hagari added, accusing Hamas of issuing an “unverified casualty count” inconsistent with Israel’s figures.
The US is seeking “further details” from Israeli officials about the strike, Sean Savett, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council, said Saturday in a statement.
Several European and Middle Eastern countries condemned the strike, along with Israel’s repeated targeting of school buildings. The US said it was seeking further details on the attack, while calling on Israel to take measures to “minimize civilian harm.”
“Horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza,” Josep Borrell, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on X. “At least 10 schools were targeted in the last weeks. There’s no justification for these massacres.”
France condemned the strike “in the firmest of terms.” The foreign ministry of Qatar, which along with the US and Egypt has been trying to get a new round of cease-fire talks going, called the bombing a “brutal crime against defenseless civilians.” Turkey said the attack showed that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “intends to sabotage the negotiations for a permanent cease-fire.”
The school was located adjacent to a mosque in Daraj Tuffah, which serves as a shelter for the residents of Gaza, said the IDF. Local Gaza authorities said the dead included women and children who were sheltering in the school.
The attack was one of the deadliest in the Israel-Hamas war, now into its 11th month, and may hinder international attempts to resume cease-fire talks between the two sides.
The US, Qatar and Egypt have called for a new round of talks on Aug. 15, the latest attempt by the Biden administration to end the war in Gaza even as the region braces for an expected Iranian attack on Israel. Israel has said it will send a delegation, while Hamas has yet to respond.
The three nations have been pressuring the two sides for months, urging both Israel and Hamas militants to halt fighting in the Gaza Strip that has killed roughly 40,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the coastal strip. Hamas, which attacked Israel on Oct. 7, is designated a terrorist group by the US and European Union.
--With assistance from Dan Williams and Akayla Gardner.
(Updates with new IDF statements in fifth through seventh paragraphs. An earlier version corrected the trashline to show Bloomberg reported an outdated death-toll estimate.)
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