The Israel Defense Forces have confirmed an air strike on an 11-story building in Gaza on Saturday which, according to Israel’s military, the Hamas movement used for its military purposes, pointing out that civilians and journalists had been warned in advance, Trend reports citing TASS.
"After providing advance warning to civilians & time to evacuate, IDF fighter jets struck a multi-story building containing Hamas military intelligence assets. The building contained civilian media offices, which Hamas hides behind and deliberately uses as human shields," the statement published on the armed forces’ Twitter page on Saturday said.
"Hamas has turned residential areas in the Gaza Strip into military strongholds. It uses tall buildings in Gaza for multiple military purposes such as intelligence gathering, planning attacks, command and control, and communications. When Hamas uses a tall building for military purposes, it becomes a lawful military target. The Israel Defense Forces struck a number of such buildings in recent days, but before we did so, we took steps to try and ensure that civilians would not be harmed. We called the building's residents and warned them to leave. We sent SMS messages," the IDF added.
The eleven-story building in Gaza where offices of several international media outlets, apartments and businesses were located was hit by four Israeli missiles on Saturday, becoming the fourth high-rise destroyed by Israel’s air strikes on the Gaza Strip. According to Al Arabiya TV channel, Al Jalaa building housed an office of this Qatari TV channel, as well as the Associated Press and other media outlets. According to the Israel Defense Forces, the building contained the military equipment belonging to the Hamas movement while the offices of the media outlets were used by this organization as "human shields."