At least 21 dead and twenty injured in an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in Gaza

Palestinian medical officials said Sunday that at least 21 people were killed and twenty more were wounded, most in serious condition, in a new Israeli airstrike in Deir al Balah, central Gaza Strip.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed the offensive against a mosque near the Al-Aqsa hospital, where, they say, a “surgical” bombing took place against “Hamas terrorists operating inside a command and control center embedded in a structure that had served as the ‘Shuhada al-Aqsa’ mosque, in the Deir al Balah area.”

The IDF added that these “command centers” are used by Hamas to “plan and execute terrorist attacks against troops of the State of Israel.”

Likewise, Israeli forces claimed to have taken “measures to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, with the use of precise munitions, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence information.”

In recent hours, the Army also intensified its attacks against the north of the enclave, especially in the Jabalia area, where at least ten other Palestinians were killed and several more were injured, according to WAFA.

Next October 7 will mark one year since the Hamas attack on Israel in which 1,200 Israelis died and another 251 were kidnapped – of which 97 remain in the hands of the armed group – which triggered an intense Israeli offensive against Gaza in the that nearly 42,000 people have already been murdered, most of them women and children.