Were Mosques Targeted During the Operation?

Only yesterday, the IDF targeted a rocket launching site was placed right next to a mosque. This launch site was a location from which terrorists fired rockets at Israel. The IDF struck the launcher and managed to decapitate it without causing any harm to the mosque.

The moment Hamas uses its mosques as weapon warehouses, these holy sites lose their impunity. As stated in the Geneva Convention:

“[…] military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”

-Geneva Convention (Protocol 1), Article 52

Weapons Found in a Mosque, March 2, 2008

So why does Hamas use these mosques as weapon warehouses? To address this question, one should first be aware of Hamas’ main strategic element —exploitation of the Palestinian civilian population as human shields for its operations and infrastructure.

This is an ages-old Hamas tactic. In the most recent armed conflict between Israeli and Gaza, Operation Cast Lead in 2009, one can clearly see that Hamas militants were using a mosque as a weapons depot and an area of operation:

 The tactics employed by Hamas include:

- The deliberate launching of rockets from densely populated areas.

- The deliberate use of civilian homes to hide and/or protect Hamas arms and munition depots and manufacturing sites.

- The unscrupulous use of civilians as human shields against anticipated air strikes.

It is important to note that even as Hamas presents the IDF with the challenge of using its own civilians as human shields, the IDF does as much as possible to avoid such casualties and currently holds the lowest civilian-to-terrorists death ratio of any other army in the world.