The Telegraph : Israeli warplanes involved in missions against Iran dropped unused bombs and missiles on Gaza before landing, The Telegraph can reveal.
Military sources have confirmed that, from the early hours of the campaign, pilots on their way home to Israel offered to use leftover munitions against Hamas.
IDF ground commanders accepted the offer, finding targets for the jets, and the initiative was subsequently rolled out more widely across the 12-day campaign against Iran.
It meant Israel was able, to a large extent, to sustain the intensity of its air strikes in Gaza, despite the main focus of the IDF having shifted to Iran.
The military insisted that, despite the initial spontaneity of the scheme, all such strikes were properly planned and conducted against legitimate targets.
The period June 14 to 24 – when Operation Rising Lion took place and international eyes were focused on Iran – was an intensely bloody time for Gazan civilians, mainly due to multiple shootings near aid-delivery points.
It is not clear how many were killed due to air strikes specifically, but overall the civilian death toll, including from aid-related shootings, was in the hundreds.
On June 18, the Wafa news agency reported that IDF airstrikes on the Maghazi refugee camp killed 10, including a woman and her children.
The agency said a strike on a tented area of al-Attar, Khan Younis, killed five on the same day.
It is understood that Maj Gen Tomer Bar, commander of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), ordered the leftover munitions initiative to be applied widely once he heard about its use.
The IAF surpassed all expectations during the Iran campaign, quickly establishing aerial supremacy over a majority of the country, which allowed them to hunt for targets relating to the Islamic Republic’s nuclear programme.
As the campaign proceeded, Israeli warplanes were increasingly utilised to take out Iranian ballistic missile launch sites, to reduce the barrages hitting civilian areas in Israel.
Donald Trump has been keen to use the momentum garnered from the apparent success of the joint US-Israeli campaign against Iran to force a resolution to the war in Gaza.
Optimism has risen in Israel and the Palestinian territories that a ceasefire and hostage release deal could be announced within days.
Hamas was reported to be broadly receptive to an initial 60-day framework, while Israeli sources indicated for the first time that the government was considering a comprehensive deal to end the war for good.
