Despite claims made by Hamas and its defenders, more proof has emerged exposing the fact that the terrorist group routinely uses Palestinian civilians as human shields. Israel’s critics have constantly railed against the Jewish state for supposedly indiscriminately bombing buildings like schools, hospitals, and others. Those who have paid attention to the overall Israeli/Palestinian conflict understand that this is how the terrorist group operates.

Now, the Israel Defense Force (IDF) has released even more footage from its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, the territory Hamas controls. The video shows Israeli soldiers walking through an abandoned building that appears to be a school. The soldiers point out the rocket launchers that were strategically placed in areas where they could be used to launch rockets into Israel.

This is what we are finding in Gaza.
A building where children play is a Hamas rocket launching site.
You have to see it to believe it: pic.twitter.com/KmMxfbYj93

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 6, 2023

In another video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, the IDF highlighted the existence of a network of tunnels and storage spaces being hidden under a hospital.

Put yourself in their shoes. How would you feel living under the control of Hamas? pic.twitter.com/yIAtgEZhfy

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 6, 2023

Also, as RedState reported Sunday, the official State of Israel X account posted footage of Hamas fighters opening fire at Israeli forces from the Sheikh Hamed hospital in Gaza. 

Hamas uses this infrastructure to conduct its operations against Israeli soldiers and civilians. In some cases, it has even placed rocket launchers near United Nations facilities.

The United Nations has found troves of rockets hidden in three of its schools since the conflict began. “We condemn the group or groups who endangered civilians by placing these munitions in our school,” Chris Gunness, spokesman for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, said in statement published Wednesday by the Times of Israel. “This is yet another flagrant violation of the neutrality of our premises. We call on all the warring parties to respect the inviolability of U.N. property.”

Each time the IDF discovers a Hamas base or cache of weapons hidden among civilians, it has a series of judgment calls to make. If it bombs the building, it will almost certainly kill civilians who Hamas has prevented from fleeing the region. If it chooses not to strike, then it allows Hamas to continue its fight against Israel.

Even further, if civilians are killed in an airstrike, then Hamas and other enemies of Israel can use their deaths as a political cudgel against the Jewish state and continue perpetuating the false narrative that it is committing genocide against Palestinian Arabs.

While Hamas has initiated this current conflict, Israel is still under pressure to minimize the impact of its response on civilians. It is a tactic the terrorists have been using since the group was founded in the 1980s. The reality that critics of Israel in Western governments and media outlets continue to accuse Israel of having some type of bloodlust against Palestinian civilians only further emboldens Hamas, which, for some of these individuals, seems to be the point.