The IDF said on Thursday that approximately 20-30 Palestinians killed by its airstrike on a UNRWA school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in the Gaza Strip earlier in the morning were likely all or mostly terrorists.
According to UNRWA, however, at least 35 Palestinians were killed, with some estimates closer to 45, and with the Hamas-affiliated Gaza Government Media Office saying 14 children and 9 women were killed and that 74 others were wounded including 23 children and 18 women.
The army said airstrikes attacked three specific locations within the compound that different groups of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists were using as command centers and staging areas for planning and carrying out attacks on the IDF defense line separating northern and central Gaza.
The IDF said this was the fifth time it engaged terrorists operating within a UNRWA facility.
Names of terrorists killed publicized
In addition, the military late Thursday publicized the identities of nine of the terrorists it said it had killed and already identified.
The IDF said it would continue to identify and publish the names of additional terrorists it had identified at the location, to demonstrate that they were combatants and not innocent civilians.
However, the fact that the IDF only identified nine terrorists and did not specifically reject concrete claims regarding 14 children being killed, though IDF sources had said they had not seen credible evidence of civilian deaths earlier Thursday, left open the possibility that the military had killed both dozens of terrorists and a sizable number of civilians, including children.
The IDF had not responded at press time to additional queries on this point.
Of the nine terrorists identified, those from Hamas were: Matzav Hafat Daryush and Rashid Bavli.
Those from PIJ were: Salim Afash, Abd al-ati Masmach, Ahmad Tzalach Mansour, Ali Hasin Bana, Mohammed Barham, Mahmoud Machtasav, and Ahmad Hatib.
Earlier, the army said it was continuing to review the incident to make sure that a small number of civilians were not also killed along with the terrorists.
However, the IDF said that so far, both before and after the operation, intelligence has indicated that the targets – the terrorists – were killed by a precisely planned strike in an area separate from where all or most of the civilians were residing.
The army said the operation had been planned for many days and that it was even called off and delayed twice to get more exact intelligence and to be more sure that civilians would not be harmed.
In addition, the IDF said that among the gunmen were specific terrorists who participated in the October 7 massacre.
The military condemned the terrorists for continuing to use schools, UN locations, mosques, and hospitals to carry out terrorist activity and to try to use human shields to avoid attacks.
The UN and UNRWA both condemned the IDF as having launched a disproportionate attack, claiming that even if terrorists were present, the harm to civilians was too large to make the attack legal.
Meanwhile, around 4 a.m. Thursday, four terrorists tried to penetrate Israel from Rafah near the Holit area.
The terrorists came out of a tunnel 200 meters from the border armed with guns and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
The terrorists were spotted by a mix of lookouts and aerial surveillance.
Drones killed two of the four and tank fire killed a third.
The fourth terrorist escaped back into Rafah.
During the gunfight, Sgt.-Maj. Zeed Mazarib, 34, a Bedouin, was killed.
Mazarib was a tracker in the Southern Regional Division of the Border Defense Corps.
Separately, the IDF on Thursday announced it had discovered a weapons factory in Rafah.
Besides the factory serving Hamas as a way to continue to build and develop new weapons, from rockets to anti-tank missiles to lighter weapons, the facility had dozens of weapons that were already ready for use.
In addition, nearby, the IDF used a drone to find a booby-trapped house that contained dozens of mortars that likely have been part of the source of regular mortars fired on the IDF by Hamas from Rafah and other areas.
Few weapons factories have been found since most of them were already discovered by early February in northern Gaza, central Gaza, and Khan Yunis in southern Gaza.
The discovery of this latest factory could be the last such revelation or at least one of the few remaining such facilities that Hamas still had in operation until now.
The Givati Brigade under Division 162 uncovered the various weapons areas.
In the North, the IDF announced early Thursday that Sgt. (res.) Refael Kauders, 39, was killed on Wednesday following the Hezbollah drone attack on Hurfeish.
He was seriously wounded and transferred to a hospital in the region for immediate medical treatment, but eventually succumbed to his wounds.
Kauders, a reservist from Tzur Hadassah, was promoted to the rank of sergeant posthumously.
The military listed the late sergeant as the “tradition and spirit” coordinator in Battalion 5030. He was a member of the 2298th Alon Brigade.
Kauders was one of 12 wounded by the Hezbollah drone attack on the Druze town of Hurfeish in the Upper Galilee, armed with explosives that erupted minutes apart from one another. At least one other soldier was seriously wounded.
The drone succeeded in penetrating the IDF’s defenses without triggering a warning siren.
In response and also as part of ongoing operations, air force fighter jets attacked a series of Hezbollah targets throughout the night in Lebanese territory.
Later Thursday, the IDF also said it had killed two Hezbollah operatives and attacked other assets of the terror group in southern Lebanon.
Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to this report.