KUALA LUMPUR: The Israeli military admitted for the first time on Thursday that it had conducted two airstrikes in the central Gaza Strip on Dec 24, which according to health officials in the enclave killed scores of civilians.
It was a rare admission of fault for a particular incident amid a conflict that, according to the Gazan Health Ministry, has killed over 20,000 people in the enclave, most of them women and children, the New York Times reported.
According to a statement released by the Israeli military, Israel Defence Forces (IDF), it "regrets the harm to uninvolved individuals, and is working to draw lessons from the incident."
The military added in the statement that Israeli fighter jets had attacked two targets close to the location of "Hamas operatives" as part of their operations in the Al Maghazi neighbourhood in central Gaza.
Referring to strikes in Al Maghazi, a neighbourhood in central Gaza, the military said in the statement that as part of its operations in the area, Israeli fighter jets had struck two targets adjacent to where "Hamas operatives" were located. https://www.nst.com.my/world/world/2023/12/994180/harrowing-who-decries-...
IDF claimed that precautions were taken to lessen harm to local populations.
"A preliminary investigation revealed that additional buildings near the targets were also hit during the strikes, which likely caused unintended harm to additional uninvolved civilians."
An unidentified military official told Israel's public broadcaster Kan News on Thursday that the large-scale destruction and high number of civilian casualties were caused by an inappropriate choice of weapons, noting that the sort of munition used did not correspond with the nature of the attack.
The military said in its statement that a fact-finding commission will look into the incident more thoroughly.
Speaking to the broadcast network Al Araby the night of the attack, Khalil Deran, the spokesman for a hospital in nearby Deir al Balah, said that the hospital had received over 70 bodies from strikes in Al Maghazi and Al Bureij, another neighbourhood in the central Gaza Strip.
Many of the deceased were women, children, and elderly people.