The Israeli military on Sunday released footage of its troops calling off the attack in Gaza in the recent round of cross-border fighting in order to avoid harming uninvolved civilians nearby.
The attack in question was set to target Islamic Jihad's southern command chief Khaled Mansour, who was killed Saturday night, but being postponed initially after the IDF noticed civilian pretense in the area.
IDF avoids harming children in the operation killing Khaled Mansour
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson Unit)
According to the IDF, "during the elimination of Khaled Mansour, children were identified on site of the attack and hence it was postponed several times. Later on, when the children were not present in the area, the attack was carried out successfully."
In footage released by the IDF Spokesperson's Unit, voices of soldiers can be heard saying: "I saw kids in the trees running around, cancel the attack."
This recurred twice afterwards: "There are still kids in the garden that is in front of the house and several kids close to the house." Only on the fourth attempt, at 9:01pm, after making sure there were no children in the area, the IDF carried out the strike.
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Footage of IDF avoiding harming children during attack, Khaled Mansour
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson Unit)
Mansour was among senior Islamic Jihad officials planning attacks against Israelis in the past week, and was responsible for hundreds of rocket launches throughout the last few years. He was involved in many terror attacks against IDF targets, including the killing of IDF soldier Eliraz Peretz in 2010.
Earlier on Sunday, the IDF also released footage from an air attack on a warehouse of naval weapons in the house of a Islamic Jihad activist. Like in the previous attack, the troops held back on launching the strike after identifying an uninvolved passerby in the vicinity.
IDF postpones attack due to uninvolved passerby
(Photo: IDF Spokesperson Unit)
In the footage, the IDF soldiers can be heard saying: "Right now there is a man in the 60-meter range who's nearing the building, do you copy?" The forces waited until he was no longer in harm's way before they went on with the attack.