Israel finds teddy bear stuffed with rifle, ammunition in Gaza school
Israel-Hamas War: The IDF said that soldiers found weaponry hidden in classrooms, some concealed in United Nations organization for Palestinian refugees bags.
The Israel Defense Forces announced that soldiers operating in the Gaza Strip found weaponry and ammunition hidden inside school classrooms. Releasing a video, Israel's military said that troops with the 551st Division discovered a sniper rifle and ammunition hidden inside a teddy bear at one of the schools.
At another school, the IDF said that soldiers found weaponry hidden in classrooms, some concealed in United Nations organization for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) bags.
"The Hamas terrorist organization is using children's games to conceal weapons, while deliberately putting the children of Gaza at risk. Throughout the war, weapons were found hidden in children's items and play areas including in a girl's backpack, under children's beds, in schools, and in playgrounds," the IDF said in a statement.
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This comes as Israel said that troops engaged with a terrorist cell in the area of a school in Shuja'iyya. The military said all the terrorists were killed after which soldiers searched the school and found a number of AK-47 rifles, grenades and ammunition inside the classrooms.
Israeli warplanes continued to strike parts of the Gaza Strip with relentless bombardments, including areas where Palestinians had been told to evacuate to in the territory’s south. The strikes come a day after the United States vetoed a United Nations resolution demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza. The vote in the 15-member council was 13-1, with the UK abstaining.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said, “Attacks from air, land and sea are intense, continuous and widespread. Gaza residents are being told to move like human pinballs – ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival.”
Gaza is at “a breaking point” with the humanitarian support system at risk of total collapse, he said fearing that “the consequences could be devastating for the security of the entire region.”
The overall Palestinian death toll in Gaza has surpassed 17,400, the majority of them women and children.