Germany justified Israel’s recent strike on the Al-Tabiin school in Gaza, which killed almost 100 Palestinians during morning prayers, saying that Israel has the “right to defend itself.”

Palestinian survivors of the attack described how men, women, and children sheltering at the school were torn to pieces after Israel targeted it with three separate strikes on Saturday.

“Israel has the right to defend itself. The reality is that Hamas uses schools, hospitals, kindergartens as command centers and that the people in the Gaza Strip are also abused against their will as protective (human) shields,” government deputy spokesman Wolfgang Buechner claimed while speaking the press in Berlin.

Buechner provided no proof of his assertions.