The Israeli army has unveiled footage of soldiers engaged in a battle with Hamas gunmen in a Gaza school before finding an entrance to an underground tunnel leading to a nearby mosque.
The footage shows Israeli soldiers firing into a dark hallway inside the school complex, which is littered with pieces of wood and other debris.
The IDF says the video was shot in Shejaiya, northern Gaza, and shows soldiers from two units coming under fire from a Hamas terror cell.
It comes as the US last night vetoed a UN motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, prompting Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to say the nation is “complicit in war crimes’. Great Britain abstained, while the other thirteen countries in the council voted in favor of the motion.
The Hamas-led Palestinian Health Authority said this morning that 17,487 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas terrorists breached the Israeli border and killed about 1,200 people.
It says Hamas fighters tried to ambush Israeli soldiers with gunfire and explosives but were neutralized.
A second video shows the destruction of the neighborhood and what appears to be a dark tunnel leading into the ground.
The IDF said this was a tunnel shaft, found in one of the school’s classrooms, leading to a nearby mosque.
Israeli spokesman Daniel Hagari shared the video on fighters of the 74th battalion of the Hamas Terrorist Squad encountered a school complex in the heart of the neighborhood.’
Israel claims to have killed all the gunmen in the area and recovered a number of weapons, grenades and ammunition.
It was also said that the tunnel shaft is part of ‘an extensive underground route’ in Shujaiya.
Israel is under increasing pressure to ensure the safety of civilians in Gaza. The nation says Hamas uses civilians as human shields and operates from civilian buildings.
At least 17,487 Palestinians have been killed since then, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry, while Israeli figures say 1,200 people have been killed in the Hamas incursion into Israel.
Hamas is believed to still be holding approximately 137 Israeli hostages. Last night, the IDF admitted that two of its soldiers had been seriously injured in a failed attempt to free hostages.
It claimed to have killed numerous Hamas militants but was unable to retrieve any hostages.
Earlier in the day, Hamas said its fighters had blocked a rescue attempt and clashed with Israeli Special Forces.
It claimed that an Israeli soldier who was being held hostage was killed by Israeli air fire intended to protect the retreating troops.
Aid agencies warn that a humanitarian disaster in Gaza is worsening by the hour, with most of the 2.3 million people left homeless and trapped in a small, embattled coastal enclave, with little food, water, medical care, fuel or safe shelter.
With basic infrastructure destroyed, telephone and internet services frequently disrupted, and a number of health statisticians dead or missing, there are growing concerns that health authorities in Gaza will be unable to continue accurately counting casualties.
The UN has warned that civilization in Gaza is on the brink of complete collapse and that there are no facilities to deal with the humanitarian crisis.
The council convened the emergency meeting to hear from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who first issued the UN Charter, which allows a UN chief to express threats he sees to international peace and security.
He warned of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza and urged the council to demand a humanitarian ceasefire.
Guterres said he raised Article 99 – which has not been used at the UN since 1971 – because “there is a grave risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian aid system in Gaza.”
