By Emanuel Fabian, JERUSALEM Israel
The Israel Defense Forces on
Tuesday night said it was not behind a blast at a hospital in the Gaza Strip
that according to Hamas health authorities led to hundreds of deaths, and that
instead a misfired rocket launched by Gaza terrorists led to the explosion at
the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.Bodies of Palestinians killed by an explosion at the Ahli Arab hospital are gathered in the front yard of the al-Shifa hospital, in Gaza City
Palestinians and much of the
Arab world blamed Israel, saying it had struck the medical facility and that
hundreds had been killed. Jerusalem was swiftly condemned by Jordan, Turkey,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others.
The Hamas-run Health Ministry
in Gaza initially said at least 500 people were killed, AP reported, a figure
that was later amended to between 200 and 300, as reported by AFP.
Terror group Hamas called the
blast “a war crime,” and the World Health Organization also issued a rebuke.
After initially saying it was
looking into the matter, the IDF denied involvement, saying it had not been
operating in the area at the time of the blast.
In a brief video circulated in
English, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said, “An analysis of IDF
operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists
in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it
was hit.”
“Intelligence from multiple
sources we have in our possession indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible
for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital in Gaza,” he added.
ALSO READ: About 500 Palestinians feared dead in air strike on Gaza hospital asIsrael denies strike
The Israeli military said
about 450 of the rockets fired routinely by Gaza-based terror organizations at
Israel and have fallen short inside Gaza since the beginning of the war on
October 7, “endangering and harming the lives of Gazan residents.”
Several videos appear to show
the moment the rocket fell short and exploded inside the Palestinian territory
on Tuesday.
One video, taken from Kibbutz
Netiv Ha’asara, appeared to match footage taken by Al Jazeera, which also
showed a rocket misfire land inside Gaza.
Another video, published by
Palestinian media outlets, showed the blast at the Ahli Arab Hospital.
The Al Jazeera footage was
geolocated by experts on X to the hospital.
Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu issued a statement in which he said: “So the whole world knows: The
barbaric terrorists in Gaza are the ones who attacked the Gaza hospital, not
the IDF.
“Those who cruelly murdered
our children murder their children as well.”
President Isaac Herzog called
accusations that Israel had struck the hospital “a blood libel.”
“An Islamic Jihad missile has killed
many Palestinians at a Gazan hospital — a place where lives should be saved,”
Herzog tweeted.
“Shame on the media who
swallow the lies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad — broadcasting a 21st-century blood
libel around the globe. Shame on the vile terrorists in Gaza who willfully
spill the blood of the innocent,” he wrote.
Both before and after Israel
denied involvement, Arab and Muslim countries accused Israel of carrying out an
attack on the hospital. They had not amended those statements.
Palestinian Authority
President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning after what he called
the “hospital massacre.”
Late Tuesday, Jordan said a
summit between US President Joe Biden and King Abdullah, Egypt’s President
Abdel Fattah Sissi and Abbas in Amman on Wednesday was canceled. The White
House later confirmed the cancelation.
A White House official said in
a statement that the decision to scrap the Amman summit was made after Biden
consulted with Abdullah “and in light of the days of mourning announced” by
Abbas following the hospital blast.
Biden sent Abdullah “his
deepest condolences for the innocent lives lost in the hospital explosion in
Gaza, and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded,” the White House official
said, being careful not to place blame on a particular party.
“Biden looks forward to
consulting in person with these leaders soon, and agreed to remain regularly
and directly engaged with each of them over the coming days,” the White House
official added.
On Tuesday night, hundreds of
Palestinians took to the streets throughout the West Bank to protest the
hospital explosion. In Ramallah, videos show protesters chanting, “The people
want the fall of the president,” in protest against Abbas’s perceived inaction
in the face of the Gaza war.
Earlier, Turkish President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the hospital blast “the latest example devoid of
the most basic human values.”
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul
Gheit called on Western leaders to “stop this tragedy immediately, adding that
“Arab mechanisms will document these war crimes and the criminals will not get
away with their actions.”
Egypt’s foreign ministry said
Cairo considered the “deliberate bombing of civilians to be a serious violation
of international, humanitarian law and of the most basic values of humanity.”
It called on Israel “to immediately stop its policies of collective punishment
against the people in the Gaza Strip.”
Abdullah said he considered
the incident a “heinous war crime that cannot be tolerated,” saying “Israel
must immediately stop its brutal aggression against Gaza.”
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry
blasted “Israeli criminal practices” and the United Arab Emirates’ presidential
adviser Anwar Gargash lamented the “Israeli targeting of Baptist Hospital”
while Bahrain used the opportunity to call for an “urgent ceasefire in Gaza.”
And Lebanon’s Iran-backed
Hezbollah movement calls for a “day of rage” to condemn the hospital blast,
blaming Israel for what it called a “massacre.”
Hospitals and their grounds
have been seen as safe havens for Gazans made homeless or displaced by the
bombing, as they have been relatively spared from strikes.
The IDF says it does not
target hospitals.
Israel has accused Islamic
Jihad before of causing the deaths of Palestinians with rockets
that fall short inside Gaza.
Israel is 11 days into a war
with Hamas following the terror group’s October 7 massacre, which saw at least
1,500 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by
land, air and sea, killing over 1,300 people and seizing 150-200 hostages of
all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli
towns and cities.
The vast majority of those
killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — men, women,
children and the elderly. Entire families were executed in their homes, and
over 260 were slaughtered at an outdoor festival, many amid horrific acts of
brutality by the terrorists, in what Biden has highlighted as “the worst
massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
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