Incontrovertible

"The IDF has concluded an After Action Review and can confirm that the Islamic Jihad was responsible for the strike on the hospital in Gaza City."

"According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had misfired -- and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened."

"They went as far as inflating the number of casualties. They understood, with absolute certainty, that it was a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad that damaged the hospital." 

"Palestinian civilians pay the price."

"We want maximum transparency because we take any incident involving civilians very seriously. Unfortunately, many in the media immediately reported the statements coming out of Hamas-controlled Gaza, which blamed Israel."

"Instead of waiting for the examination of credible information from the IDF, some media outlets ran with Hamas's lies. Some of those headlines are still up and have not been corrected."

"I understand the desire to break news, but I hope you will all agree that accuracy and credible information comes before speed."

Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, spokesman, Israel Defense Forces

The scorched parking lot of the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City after an overnight blast there, October 18, 2023. (Courtesy photo)

"The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable."

"International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this, and in all cases."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

 

"The attack on the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza is horrifying and against international humanitarian law."

Industry minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, Canada

Hamas is the terrorist body that invaded Israel on October 7/8 at the Gaza/Israel border, in a surprise attack that saw hundreds of Israeli citizens and soldiers slaughtered, Israeli girls and women raped, children and infants killed alongside their parents in towns and villages adjacent the border, hundreds more killed at a music festival, and hundreds of men, women and children taken into Gaza by the terrorist operatives to be held as sex slaves and hostages. And this is the group that has claimed Israel to be responsible for the bombing of a hospital in Gaza.

 

Evidently there were no second thoughts of caution considering from whom the accusations came, and legacy media in the West alongside media in the Middle East ran with the story that the Israel Defense Forces deliberately targeted a hospital and killed 500 innocent Palestinians, over half of which were children, according to statements issued by Hamas and the Gaza Medical Authority. The kind of claim that embarrassed even the director of the hospital who demurred, suggesting maybe half that number...?

 

But the word of a terrorist group was good enough for the prime minister of Canada and his cabinet who swiftly issued condemnations over the horrific event, not-so-subtly reminding Israel that an attack of that kind is considered a war crime, assuming without proof or even a decent period of deliberation and second thought, that it was Israel who committed the dread act. It wasn't hard to convince the Arab/Muslim street in the Middle East and across Europe and North America. Fresh 'protests' against Israel's depredations on Gaza erupted, synagogues were fire-bombed in Spain, Tunisia and Germany.  

The IDF, following a quick and thorough investigation and examination of evidence, provided among other things, a recording of a conversation that took place between Hamas operatives, confirming it was a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch causing the blast. The rocket had been launched from the site of a cemetery located behind the hospital: "it misfired and fell on them", in the words of one Hamas operative.

And then there was aerial footage where the hospital was shown not to have been hit directly, damage confined to the parking lot beside the hospital. Footage was shown from a news camera in the southern Israeli city of Netivot where the video shows the rocket launched and immediately striking in the area of the hospital. A common enough occurrence as a byproduct of Gaza rockets fired toward Israel falling short of their target and hitting Gaza instead, including Palestinian citizens. 

Reports out of Gaza that led to universal outrage was that an explosion killed 471, injuring over 300. The images shown by the Gaza Health Ministry were of a blackened hospital parking lot with burned-out cars. The claim was that the parking lot and courtyard were full of hundreds of families seeking shelter. News out of Gaza that hundreds of injured civilians were rushed to the main hospital, doctors reporting treating the wounded on floors when bed availability ran out. 

Hamas is notorious for gloating with satisfaction over Palestinian civilian casualties, the more that can be claimed, the stronger its message to the world of Israeli inhumanity toward Palestinians. The original figure of 500 killed has, over the space of two days gradually  diminished to the point where perhaps it was a relative handful of truly unfortunate Palestinians whose lives were lost. 

 

An all-volunteer geolocation web group -- GeoConfirmed -- analyzed multiple videos of the minutes leading up to the explosion, concluding the hospital blast occurred immediately following the launch of a rocket barrage from northern Gaza; when one appeared to break apart soon after launch. Similarly a point-by-point analysis for the US.-based conflict researcher Tal Hagin noted the blast perfectly corresponded with announced rocket launches by Palestinian Islamic Jihad, with no reports of either Israeli shelling or airstrikes by Israel in the general vicinity.

"Shame on the media who swallowed the lies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- broadcasting a 21st-century blood libel around the globe."

"Shame on the vile terrorists in Gaza who wilfully spill the blood of the innocents."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog

 

J.Andres Gannon, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt University, in the US, says the ground explosions appeared to be small, meaning that the heat generated from the impact may have been caused by leftover rocket fuel rather than an explosion from a warhead.

Justin Bronk, senior research fellow at the UK-based Royal United Services Institute, agrees. While it is difficult to be sure at such an early stage, he says, the evidence looks like the explosion was caused by a failed rocket section hitting the car park and causing a fuel and propellant fire. 

Mr Gannon says it is not possible to determine whether the projectile struck its intended target from the footage he has seen. He adds that the flashes in the sky likely indicate the projectile was a rocket with an engine that overheated and stopped working.

BBC Verify