CNN Investigation Points to IDF Being Behind Airstrike That Killed 10 Children in Gaza — Despite Denials

CNN’s Jeremy Diamond reported in April on an airstrike that killed several civilians in Gaza, including eight children playing foosball. After an investigation by CNN, Diamond reported that the evidence points to the Israeli Defense Forces being responsible, despite the IDF issuing denials.

During Anderson Cooper 360 on Wednesday, Diamond presented a follow-up to his devastating report that included graphic footage of the aftermath of the strike. A focal point of the report was a 10-year-old girl named Shahed. Since that report, the number of children killed as a result of that strike rose to ten with an eleventh still fighting for his life in the hospital.

At the time, the IDF did not have a comment, but during his report on Wednesday, Diamond had received a response:

Two weeks later, the Israeli military still won’t take responsibility for the strike that killed [Shahed]. CNN provided the IDF with the coordinates and time of the attack, based on metadata from two different phones in the immediate aftermath. The IDF said they did not have a record of that strike. They said they carried out a strike “at a different time than described,” and that “the collateral damage as described in the query is not known to the IDF. The IDF makes great efforts to mitigate harm to the civilian population from areas where strikes are being carried out.”

But CNN’s investigation yielded something more:

Evidence recovered and documented by CNN at the scene of the strike paints a very different picture of Israeli military responsibility. This circuit board and bits of shrapnel, walls and shop steps distinctively pockmarked, and a small crater barely a foot wide, all pointing three munitions experts to the same conclusion: the carnage was likely caused by a precision-guided munition deployed by the Israeli military.

After his report, Diamond spoke to anchor Anderson Cooper, telling him that the response from the IDF “raised more questions than it answered.”

Watch the video above via CNN.