Nigeria: Israeli military strikes Gaza mosque, claims it was used as Hamas weapons depot
By Zuleihat Owuiye, Nigeria
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that it had carried out an airstrike on a mosque in northern Gaza which it alleged was being used by Hamas as a weapons storage facility.
Photos and video from Gaza City on Tuesday showed a large fireball and plume of smoke rising over tents housing displaced Palestinians following the strike on the Al-Muttaqin Mosque. In the aftermath, residents were seen sifting through rubble and debris.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces said it had “struck and dismantled several Hamas weapons storage facilities in the central and northern Gaza Strip” over the past week.
“One of the storage facilities had been established inside a mosque in the northern Gaza Strip,” the military said. It added that advance warnings were issued to civilians before the strike.
The army said it continues to target sites it identifies as being used by Hamas for military purposes, even while a fragile ceasefire remains in place.
AFP footage showed dozens of Palestinians evacuating the area around the mosque shortly before it was hit.
Shehadeh Badawi, an eyewitness, questioned whether the truce was holding.
“Is this a ceasefire? Every day there are attacks, every hour, every breath. There are attacks everywhere. They threaten and strike, whether it’s civilian vehicles or anything else they bomb,” he told AFP.
Amir Abu Al-Amrain, director general of the Gaza Ministry of Awqaf and Religious Affairs, said Israeli forces had “completely destroyed” the mosque.
“The occupation cites false pretexts — such as the alleged presence of military sites — to justify these crimes,” he said, calling for urgent international intervention to protect mosques and places of worship.
The strike comes despite a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that has been in effect since October 2025. However, violence has not stopped in the Gaza Strip.
According to figures cited in reports, 1,207 people have been killed in Gaza since the truce began. Israeli forces continue to carry out operations they say target militants, while efforts to secure a lasting agreement to end the war have stalled.
The war, which was triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, has flattened large areas of Gaza, displaced most of the population at least once, and left hundreds of thousands living in tents and temporary shelters.
As of March 24, 2026, UNESCO had verified damage to 164 cultural sites in Gaza since the war began. Fourteen of those are religious sites.
Palestinian authorities have repeatedly accused Israel of targeting civilian infrastructure under the pretext of military necessity, while Israel maintains that Hamas embeds fighters and weapons in civilian areas, including schools, hospitals, and places of worship.
The strike on Al-Muttaqin Mosque is the latest example of that dispute playing out in real time, with the Israeli military citing military use and Gaza officials calling it an attack on a civilian place of worship.
With the ceasefire fragile and negotiations stalled, residents in Gaza say daily life remains defined by fear of renewed strikes, even in areas where displaced families have sought shelter.
