‘Under review’: Israel launches probe into its deadly Gaza cafe strike; says it targeted ‘Hamas terrorists’
A day after at least 24 Palestinians were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli strike on a seafront Gaza café, the Israeli military on Tuesday announced a review into the strike.However, the Israeli army maintained that it had conducted the strike against “several Hamas terrorists in the northern Gaza Strip.”“Prior to the strike, steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians using aerial surveillance. The incident is under review,” an army spokesperson told news agency AFP.The Al-Baqa café, a prominent venue along Gaza City’s coastal promenade, had so far survived more than 20 months of war and intense bombings on the Palestinian territory. It had become a gathering spot for those not displaced by the conflict.“There’s always a lot of people at that spot, which offers drinks, spaces for families, and internet access,” a witness said.“It was a massacre. I saw bits of bodies flying everywhere, bodies mangled and burned. It was a bloodcurdling scene; everybody was screaming,” he added.The Israel-Hamas warIsrael launched its campaign in response to Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack in the Jewish State, which resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, as per an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.Of the 251 hostages seized during the assault, 49 are still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead. The retaliatory campaign has killed at least 56,531 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable.
