IDF: Hamas Was Using Gaza Tower That Housed AP To Jam Iron Dome
Israel’s envoy to the U.S.: Hamas was using the building to “develop an electronic jamming system to be used against the Iron Dome defense system.”
The Gaza tower block that housed the offices of foreign media outlets contained electric warfare equipment deployed by Hamas to disrupt the Iron Dome missile defense system, the Israel Defense Forces disclosed on Tuesday.
There was a huge media outcry when an Israeli airstrike on May 15 leveled the 12-story building that served as the Gaza offices for the Associated Press and the Qatar-funded Al Jazeera. Israel had issued prior warnings, allowing the journalists and occupants to evacuate safely.
According to the IDF, the “media” tower doubled as the base for Hamas’s electronic warfare operations that targeted the Iron Dome along with other Israeli military and civilians systems. Therefore, the terrorist group effectively used foreign reporters as a human shield. “One of the main goals of these efforts was to develop a system that would disrupt the Iron Dome aerial defense system,” the statement disclosed.
Hamas and its allied terrorist groups fired close to 4500 rockets aimed at Israeli civilians during the 11-day conflict that ended on May 21. In addition, they often fired missiles in massive barrages comprising hundreds of rockets, a tactic meant to overwhelm the Iran dome.
The Times of Israel reported the IDF’s statement:
The Israel Defense Forces says Hamas was operating within a Gaza media tower housing the offices of international media outlets, including The Associated Press, to develop a system to disrupt the Iron Dome missile defense system.
The army’s statement comes shortly after Israel’s UN ambassador makes similar comments explaining the IDF’s widely condemned May 15 strike leveling the tower during last month’s 11-day conflict.
“During Operation ‘Guardians of the Walls’ the IDF struck the al-Jalaa building on May 15th, 2021. The site was used by the Hamas terror organization for intelligence R&D and to carry out SIGINT (signals intelligence), ELINT (electronic signals intelligence), and EW (electronic warfare) operations, targeting both IDF operational activity and civilian systems in Israel,” the army says.
“One of the main goals of these efforts was to develop a system that would disrupt the Iron Dome aerial defense system,” it says.
“The purpose of the IDF strike was to curtail these enemy capabilities, including destroying special equipment, and preventing their use during the operation. According to IDF assessments, the equipment was in the building at the time of the strike. The strike was designed to collapse the building in order to ensure the destruction of the special means.
“The target was of high military value to Hamas and was vetted according to rigorous procedures within the IDF, and in accordance with international law,” adds the military.
On late Monday, Israel’s Ambassador to the U.S. Gilad Erdan met with the top AP executives to shed more light on the IDF’s decision to strike the building. Hamas used the facility to “develop an electronic jamming system to be used against the Iron Dome defense system,” he told the AP bosses.
“Hamas is a murdering terrorist organization that tramples freedom of the press when it operates its terrorist enterprise from within civilian populations, including in the building used by international media,” he added.
Pro-Hamas activists and many on the Far-Left slammed Israel for hitting the building that served as Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a member of the Democratic Party’s notorious squad, claimed that the IDF had targeted the building “so the world can’t see Israel’s war crimes.”
Many mainstream media outlets echoed that vicious narrative repeatedly referred to the tower as a “media” or “press” building. Thus, they created an impression that Israel was somehow stifling Gaza-related media coverage. “Israel’s Strike on Media Building in Gaza Provokes Outrage,” The New York Times claimed. “Press freedom advocates condemned Israel’s airstrike,” NBC News reported.
Israeli spokesman defends strike on the building
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That’s would be exactly what the bad guys would be expected to do.
“ explaining the IDF’s widely condemned May 15 strike leveling the tower during last month’s 11-day conflict.”
I too condemn the 5/15 strike. The IDF should not have given the terrorists (a term that includes the AP and Al-Jazzera propagandists) notification prior to destruction of the building and it’s radar-jamming services.
Israel should just blow the thing up.
Oh wait, they did.
And hopefully they blew it up with the people in it – including the Associated Press propagandists operating in it.
Wait – they DIDN’T?
It sounds like any building more than one story high should be leveled.
Problem is, they have miles of tunnels in which they skulk, leaving the civilians above ground as shields. Of course, those “civilians” elected and support Hamas so I for one don’t care if they’re bombed. But I’m probably in the minority in not processing distress about “innocent” women and children who are indoctrinated in anti-Israel (and anti-Jewish) hatred from the earliest ages and grow into full-fledged terrorists by the time they’re teenagers.
Hamas is operating a massive jamming system out of a building that houses fer-gosh-sake international media offices, and we are to believe that the jamming had zero effect on their operations so they knew nothing about it.
It sounds like any building ove one story should be leveled.