Israel reiterates air force targeted Hamas operative, not Gaza church, after American allies question its explanations

An IDF spokesman on Monday for the second time denied that Israel targeted Gaza’s Greek-Orthodox St. Porphyrius church, after an airstrike near the church was claimed to have killed 16 people on Friday, Oct. 20.

When the story was first reported, it appeared like a replay of the incident at the Al-Ma’amadani Hospital in Gaza just three days before.

The fake news about the alleged Israeli attack on the hospital, which supposedly killed over 500 people, was distributed around the world before the IDF presented evidence that Israel wasn’t responsible.

It was the first successful instance of media warfare against Israel and, despite the fact the story was eventually debunked, much of the damage was already done.

The alleged incident of mass civilian casualties in a bombing of at the St. Porphyrius church wasn’t even the first such report during this war.

A fake story published by the Greek City Times a week prior had also claimed that Israel “bombed” the church, but was quickly disproven by the church leadership.

Therefore, the second claim of an attack against the church did not make big waves in the international media coverage at first.

Among others, the website Middle East Eye, which often takes anti-Israeli stances, reported that Israeli airstrikes had targeted the church and that almost 40 people were killed.

The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry reported that 16 people were killed in the attack.

Video footage of the day after clearly showed that the church itself was in no way “bombed” or “destroyed.” Instead, the church’s façade was damaged by debris.

The target of the strike was a two-story building that was part of the compound and stood opposite the church. At the time of the blast, dozens of people reportedly had taken shelter there.

The IDF quickly stated that Hamas had a command and control center in the building, which was involved in launching rockets and mortars toward Israel.

“Hamas intentionally embeds its assets in civilian areas and uses the residents of the Gaza Strip as human shields,” its statement read.

“As a result of the IDF strike, a wall of a church in the area was damaged,” it said, adding, “We are aware of reports on casualties. The incident is under investigation.”

Then, however, the story received a boost of attention when former U.S. Republican Representative Justin Amash, a Palestinian-American, said a number of his relatives, among them little children, were in the building at the time and were killed.

His tweets on the topic received over 25 million views.

Contrary to the IDF’s usual policy, army spokesman Jonathan Conricus finally addressed the issue a second time when the American Evangelical conservative Charlie Kirk, who is known to be very pro-Israel, questioned Israel’s explanation of the incident on X.

“I’ve been disappointed by Israel’s response,” Kirk wrote in a long post that subsequently went viral on Monday.

Until now I've refrained from tweeting about the damage done to the 12th-century Greek Orthodox church of St Porphyrius in Gaza. After last week’s hospital fiasco, I wanted to wait for more facts to be established. But it now seems confirmed that Israel did actually bomb a…

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) October 23, 2023

“What intelligence was Israel responding to; what target were they going after that justified putting a historic church in danger? Israel says the church blast is ‘under investigation.’ But contrition and a full accounting should be the top of Israel’s priority list.”

“Israel quickly apologized recently when it mistakenly targeted an Egyptian position. Christians around the world are Israel's number 1 ally, and if a Christian church was targeted we need to know exactly why and how,” Kirk added.

“I understand your feelings and respect them. We did not target that or any other church. We struck a Hamas military operative who coordinated rocket fire towards Israel from that vicinity. He was a legitimate target. We will continue to be careful of any sensitive facility,” Conricus told Kirk, who thanked the spokesman for his response.