The Canadian government is condemning an Israeli airstrike that hit a mosque in a school compound in Gaza on Aug. 10. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says the bombing caused civilian casualties. The Israeli Ambassador to Canada retorts that terrorists were the ones being targeted in the strike.
“Israel must uphold international humanitarian law. Hamas must stop putting civilian lives in danger, ” she added.
Israel’s Ambassador to Canada Iddo Moed responded to Joly and Global Affairs Canada shortly after the comment was posted on the social media platform.
“Today (Saturday), the IDF and ISA struck terrorists operating in a Hamas command and control center, which was embedded inside a mosque in the Al-Taba’een school compound,” the statement said.
Reports by Hamas
According to Gaza’s Civil Emergency Service, a Hamas-run agency, around 100 people were killed in the airstrike. Several Arab states, Turkey, Britain, the United States, and the European Union’s foreign policy chief in turn have expressed their condemnation of the attack.
In a televised press conference on Aug. 10, Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Hamas-run Gaza’s Civil Defence, said the school compound was attacked while its occupants were performing dawn prayers. He said casualties included 11 children.
Fadel Naeem, director of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, told The Associated Press in an interview on Aug. 10 that his hospital received 70 bodies along with the body parts of at least 10 others. Gaza’s Health Ministry said another 47 people were wounded.
‘Unverified’
The IDF and ISA disputed the toll claimed by Hamas officials.
“The strike was carried out using three precise munitions, which, according to professional analysis, can not cause the amount of damage that is being reported by the Hamas-run Government Information Office in Gaza. Furthermore, no severe damage was caused to the compound where the terrorists were situated,” they said in their statement.
“These figures do not distinguish between combatants and non combatants, and they do not match the information held by the IDFs,” he said.
The statement by the IDF and ISA said the school compound, and the mosque that was struck within it, was used by terrorists as a site to “advance and carry out attacks against IDF soldiers and the State of Israel from inside the compound.”
The IDF and ISA say Hamas “systematically violates international law and operates from within civilian infrastructure and shelters, brutally exploiting the civilian population and institutions as human shields for their terror activities.”
In response to an Epoch Times request for comment, a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson said “we have nothing further to add” to Joly’s comment that was posted on X.
Reuters and The Associated Press contribute to this report.
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