CNN’s Wolf Blitzer sounded incredulous as he spoke with Israel military spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht on Tuesday about the bombing of a refugee camp in Gaza that took out a senior Hamas official, but also according to local reports killed at least 50 people.
In a excerpt from the interview shared to social media, Blitzer tried to clarify the Israel Defense Forces’ strategy.
“But even if that Hamas commander was there, amidst all those Palestinian refugees who are in there in that Jabalya refugee camp, Israel still went ahead and dropped a bomb there attempting to kill this Hamas commander, knowing that a lot of innocent civilians, men, women and children presumably would be killed,” Blitzer asked Hecht. “Is that what I’m hearing?”
The Times of Israel reported on Tuesday that the bombing killed Ibrahim Biari, who took part in the horrific Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel. The bombing also killed “several other terrorists and caused underground terror tunnels to collapse, bringing down several nearby buildings.”
According to the BBC, as many as 120 people may have been killed and up to 400 wounded in the strike.
Hecht initially implied to Blitzer as the CNN anchor pressed the Israeli officer that they were not aware of the presence of innocent civilians before reiterating Israel had warned residents to evacuate northern Gaza while calling the bombing “the tragedy of war.”
“That’s not what you’re hearing Wolf,” Hecht replied. “Again, we were focused on the commander, who you’ll get the data on who this man was, who killed many many Israelis. We’re doing everything we can. It’s a very complicated battle space. — the infrastructure there, the tunnels there. We’re still looking into it and will give you more data as the hour moves ahead.”
Watch video of the CNN interview below.