TERROR group Hamas has been accused of using civilian sites to launch its attacks.
Aerial footage appears to show a rocket launcher being fired from an orchard — which was just yards from a water desalination plant.
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The video, supplied by the Israeli Defence Forces to The Sun on Sunday, shows a flare of light when what appears to be a rocket, one of more than 7,000 which have been launched, is fired towards Israel.
We geolocated the site and confirmed it was next to a £9million plant which was built with European Union funding and opened in 2017.
The weapon appeared to be hidden at the plant at Deir al Balah on the Mediterranean coast in what seems to be an orchard — likely an olive or pomegranate grove — just a few yards from the facility.
If the site was to suffer damage in a strike to take out the launcher then it could further deprive thousands of Palestinians already reeling after four weeks of bombardment.
Water has long been in short supply for Gaza’s 2.3million residents as 95 per cent of that extracted from the aquifer beneath it is not suitable for human consumption.
Israel supplies ten per cent of the country’s water with the rest made up of sea water treated at three desalination plants.
The supply from Israel was cut off when a full blockade of the enclave was imposed after the attacks on October 7 by Hamas.
Israel later restarted supplies and by this week was supplying 28.5 million litres a day — only about half of its supply before war broke out.
The plant in the footage was providing 20,000 cubic metres of water a day to residents of southern Gaza before the war.
It is not known if the rocket launcher still remains at the site in Deir al Balah since the footage of it being fired was released.
An IDF spokesman said of the video clip: “Hamas is firing rockets from inside densely populated civilian areas — right next to schools, hospitals, homes and humanitarian facilities.
“In this footage, you can see a Hamas rocket launcher, placed intentionally adjacent to a water desalination facility, used for providing water to the civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“It is an active rocket launching from within the Gaza Strip, towards Israel.”
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The spokesman added that the location was picked to make it hard for Israeli forces to eliminate it — underlining the alleged policy of choosing areas that would suffer collateral damage if targeted by a strike.
He insisted that the tactic was “a deliberate strategy”.
He added: “Hamas knows that when they fire rockets at Israel, Israel will respond in self-defence to stop this threat.
“They also know that Israel makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties while operating, so they do this to make it even more difficult for Israel to target their terrorist infrastructure.
“Hamas has got better at covering this up over the years, but there are countless examples to show that its strategy is still in place.”
The claims come as a row continues over Israel’s strike on an ambulance on Friday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 15 people were killed when the ambulance, which had been trying to take patients to the Rafah border crossing, was hit outside Al-Shifa hospital on Friday.
It accused Israel of committing a war crime.
The PRC claims there were two strikes on ambulances, the deadliest one yards from the hospital and one about a kilometre away.
It says the dead were civilians and 60 others were wounded.
Witness Bisan Owda, a filmmaker, told the BBC: “Some people lost their legs, lost their hands, people were trying to carry injuries,
“People were crying, trying to find each other.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, said he was “utterly shocked”.
He added: “We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities, and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always.”
But the IDF said that it had targeted the vehicle because it was being used to ferry terrorists and that a number of Hamas fighters had been killed.
A spokesman said: “We have information which demonstrates that Hamas’s method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.
“We emphasise that this area is a battle zone.
“Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety.”
Israel had previously claimed before the strike on the ambulance that Hamas placed command and control centres and rocket launchers under hospitals.
The IDF’s Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari accused the terror group of using patients as human shields and said: “Hamas wages war from hospitals.”
He claimed Hamas had placed a command and control centre under Shifa Hospital — with another base inside it.
He said: “We have concrete evidence that hundreds of terrorists flooded into the hospital to hide there after the massacres of October 7.”
He also said that Israel believes several tunnels lead to the underground base from outside the hospital and there is an entrance to the complex within one of the wards.
Mr Hagari added: “Shifa is not the only hospital — it is one of many. Hamas’s use of hospitals is systematic.”
Background to the conflict
HISTORIAN Mark Almond — Director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford — here outlines background to the conflict between Israel and Palestine and explains the parts played by others in the Middle East.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL?
ISRAEL declared its independence in 1948 — but the Jewish state’s roots go back 3,000 years to when it occupied the land as a kingdom.
It was later conquered by Rome and the Jews eventually expelled after a rebellion was crushed.
They were scattered around the world until Hitler’s World War Two murder of six million led to survivors moving to UK-run Palestine.
In 1948 Israel’s army defeated Arab states who tried to strangle the new state at birth.
WHO ARE HAMAS AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?
HAMAS is the governing party of Gaza. It is a Muslim organisation which rejects Israel’s right to exist.
The group was founded in 1987 by blind, wheelchair-bound cleric Sheikh Yassin who wanted an Islamic state to include Israeli territory.
He was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2004. But Hamas continued to attack Israel with homemade and Iranian rockets.
They launched a murderous assault on Israeli families on October 7, killing 1,400.
WHY ARE HEZBOLLAH OF CONCERN TO ISRAEL?
HEZBOLLAH is a Shia Muslim organisation run by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah which controls the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.
After clashes with Israel, it became an army with Iranian missiles and thousands of fighters.
Israel suffered heavy losses when it fought Hezbollah in 2006 — the first time an Arab army had successfully held off its forces.
A third of Israel’s forces man the Lebanese border to deter Hezbollah from joining Hamas’s war in Gaza.
WHAT IS IRAN’S ROLE IN CURRENT EVENTS?
IRAN is Israel’s mortal enemy — seeing it as America’s main ally in the Middle East ever since the Islamic Revolution there in 1979.
Iran provides money, weapons and training to both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon to act as proxies for its anti-Israeli strategy on the country’s borders.
But it also backs Iraqi militant Muslim groups who attack American forces there, as well as the Yemeni Houthi militia.
WHAT’S HAPPENED TO SAUDI/ISRAELI TALKS?
ONE of the biggest impacts of the current war has been the suspension of talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, who had been preparing to live normally side-by-side.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, resulting from Israel’s determination to crush Hamas, has made it impossible for the Saudis to deal directly with Israel.
Popular anger at the human cost of defeating Hamas has made even countries like Egypt and Jordan back away.
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