The Israeli military nixed a planned air strike against an Islamic Jihad position in the Gaza Strip, the IDF said Sunday afternoon.
According to a statement by an army spokesperson, the IDF had planned to bomb a weapon cache in the home of an Islamic Jihad terrorist, but aborted the strike at the last minute after a Gaza civilian was spotted some 200 feet away from the targeted building.
"A civilian was detected in the area during a strike on a weapons storage facility in the residence of an Islamic Jihad operative in the Gaza Strip," the spokesperson said. "The IDF aborted the strike. The strike was carried out later in order to avoid harm to civilians in the area."
"There is somebody [a civilian] within 60 meters approaching the building," an IDF official said just before the strike was aborted."
The strike was planned as part of Israel's Operation Breaking Dawn, which began on Friday, amid a wave of rocket attacks by Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.