New Delhi, July 22 (IANS): The Suja'iya neighbourhood in Gaza was targeted in the ongoing Israeli offensive because it is a stronghold of the Islamic Hamas movement, the Israeli embassy here said in a statement.
Dozens of people died in the attack on Shuja'iya Sunday which the embassy described as a "terror-eliminating mission".
"Over the past 24 hours, the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) conducted a terror-eliminating mission in Shuja'iya, a neighbourhood renowned for its high concentration of terrorist activities," it said.
It said some six million Israelis are currently living under the threat of Hamas rocket attacks.
"Shuja’iya is a powerful example of Hamas’s activities throughout Gaza,” the statement said.
“Hamas has positioned rocket launchers and other terrorist infrastructures among the civilian population of Gaza, near or under homes, schools, hospitals and mosques, leaving Palestinian civilians deliberately exposed to grave danger and forced to become human shields,” it added.