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Hamas terrorists being pursued by the IDF sought refuge in a mosque in an ongoing operation in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.

When the IDF surrounded the mosque, Hamas broadcasted a call over the radio for women and children to surround the mosque as human shields in order to hinder the IDF soldiers who reportedly stood a few hundred yards away. About 100 women responded to the call and crowded at the entrance to the mosque.

In the end, two women were killed as IDF soldiers took aim at the terrorists making their escape among the Palestinian women serving as their human shields. The escape among the crowd of human shields was successful as the IDF reported no one was in the mosque when they entered it after the crowd cleared.

Palestinian sources said that the IDF took aim at the women as they approached the mosque, but the IDF said that they fired only at terrorists once they were in their midst.

While a Rueters headline reads “Gunfire leaves veiled woman dead on a Gaza street” and an International Herald Tribune headline labels it a “Hamas protest in besieged Gaza town,” what is clear by all accounts thus far is that the women were intending to put themselves between IDF fire and the Hamas terrorists they sought to free in a human shield operation, not a protest march.

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