RABAT, March 4. /TASS/. The Israel Defense Forces has fully destroyed or damaged more than 500 mosques in the Gaza Strip since the start of its military operation, the enclave government’s information department said.

Its report notes that the Israeli military has destroyed 217 mosques completely and 284 partially. In addition, three churches in the Gaza Strip came under fire and were destroyed.

In 150 days of the war, the Israeli army has destroyed 163 government buildings in the Palestinian enclave. As many as 100 schools and universities were destroyed completely, while another 305 were partially destroyed, it said.

Tensions flared up again in the Middle East on October 7 after militants from the Gaza Strip-based radical Palestinian group Hamas launched a surprise incursion on Israeli territory, killing many Israeli kibbutz residents living near the Gaza border and abducting more than 200 Israelis, including women, children and the elderly. Hamas described its attack as a response to Israeli authorities’ aggressive actions against the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem’s Old City. Israel declared a total blockade of the Gaza Strip and launched bombardments of the enclave and some areas in Lebanon and Syria, as well as a ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Clashes are also reported in the West Bank.