Screen shot. Photo: Youtube

The Israel Air Force called of an airstrike on a “terror activity site” on Thursday after spotting children in the vicinity of the target, a recently released video shows.

“There are people close to our target,” the pilot carrying out the mission is heard saying in the clip. “It looks like there are people, possibly children in our targeted area.”

An operator responds: “We are not going to strike this target now, let’s move on.”

The aborted strike was part of Israel’s ongoing Operation Protective Edge aimed at halting Gaza rocket attacks on Israel that have increased over the past weeks.

Israel prides itself on being careful to avoid civilian casualties during its conflicts and takes numerous steps to do so, including warning building occupants in advance of strikes. Earlier the week another mission was aborted when people ran onto the roof of a building to serve as human shields.

A United Nations document published on Wednesday said that in most cases where Palestinians have been killed or injured during Israel’s Gaza campaign, the Israeli army alerted civilians ahead of time who were occupying buildings, that they planned to bomb in Gaza, to leave the premises.

Watch a video of the aborted strike below: