Israel army hit Gaza mosque, alleges Hamas operated from site

The Israeli military said on Wednesday it had struck a mosque in the Gaza Strip, alleging the site had been used by Hamas as a weapons storage facility.

AFP photos from Gaza City showed fire and a huge plume of smoke rising above tents housing displaced Gazans during the strike on the Al-Muttaqin Mosque on Tuesday.

Why did Israel say it struck the Gaza mosque?

The Israeli military said it had dismantled several Hamas weapons storage facilities in the central and northern Gaza Strip over the past week. One of those facilities, it said, had been established inside a mosque in the northern Gaza Strip, and advance warnings were given to civilians before the strike.

Palestinians could be seen combing through vast piles of rubble and debris in the aftermath of the attack. AFP footage showed dozens of Palestinians evacuating the area before the mosque was hit.

Has the Gaza ceasefire held since it began?

A fragile ceasefire remains in place between Israel and Palestinian group Hamas, but it has not halted violence in the Gaza Strip. At least 1,207 people have been killed since the truce began in October 2025, and Israeli fire continues to regularly target Palestinians the military says are militants. Efforts to secure a lasting agreement to end the war have stalled.

"Is this a ceasefire? Every day there are attacks, every hour, every breath," eyewitness Shehadeh Badawi told AFP in the aftermath of the strike. "There are attacks everywhere. They threaten and strike, whether it's civilian vehicles or anything else they bomb."

How have Palestinian officials responded to the mosque strike?

Amir Abu Al-Amrain, director general of the ministry of awqaf and religious affairs in the Gaza Strip, said Israeli forces had completely destroyed the mosque in the airstrike. "The occupation cites false pretexts, such as the alleged presence of military sites, to justify these crimes," he said, calling for urgent intervention to protect mosques and places of worship.

As of March 24, 2026, the UN's cultural agency UNESCO had verified damage to 164 sites since the start of the Gaza war, which was triggered by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Fourteen of those sites are religious sites.