The IDF airstrike on the Tabeen school in Gaza that reportedly killed 100 Palestinians was legitimate self-defense because Hamas uses civilians as human shields, the German government has said.

Saturday’s attack on the facility, which served as a shelter for displaced persons, has been described as the deadliest since the start of the current conflict.

“Israel has the right to defend itself. The reality is that Hamas uses schools, hospitals and kindergartens as command centers and that the people in the Gaza Strip are also abused against their will as protective shields,” Wolfgang Buechner, deputy spokesman for the German government, told reporters in Berlin on Monday.

Buechner also urged journalists to “be very careful about sitting on one-sided reports that are distributed by Hamas and believing everything that is spread by this side.”

The airstrike on Saturday morning came during the pre-dawn prayers. The Gaza health ministry initially reported 60 dead and 47 wounded. Al Jazeera later reported more than 100 deaths and “dozens” of people injured.

“In the hellish aftermath, body parts were strewn around the rubble and charred, bloodied bodies slumped in the wreckage of the two-story complex,” according to Agence France-Presse.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the attack, saying “there is no and can be no justification for such actions.”

Her words were echoed by the EU high representative for foreign policy, Josep Borrell, who wrote on X that he was “horrified by images from a sheltering school in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike, with reportedly dozens of Palestinian victims.”

The Israeli military said it had targeted the school because Hamas used it as a headquarters, from which it “planned and promoted terrorist operations against the IDF forces and the citizens of the State of Israel.”

The Palestinian group called the Israeli claim a lie and a false pretext used to “target civilians, schools, hospitals, and refugee tents.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared war on Hamas last year, following the deadly October 7 raid launched from Gaza that claimed the lives of over 1,100 Israelis. Since then, almost 40,000 Palestinians in the enclave have been killed and over 92,000 more wounded as a result of Israeli military operations. 

A UN human rights envoy has described Israeli actions as a “genocide” while several countries have intervened with the International Criminal Court to stop West Jerusalem. However, Germany has openly backed Netanyahu.

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