Not surprisingly, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) has quickly absolved itself of responsibility for the attack on al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City yesterday which led to the death of some 600 people. “Israel Defense Forces completed its investigation and confirms that the Islamic Jihad is responsible for the explosion at the hospital in the Gaza Strip,” said IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari, reported TASS. He claimed that at least 450 rockets out of the overall number of rockets launched from Gaza by Hamas since Oct. 7 have landed within the Palestinian enclave. According to the IDF account, the explosion at the hospital did not leave the kind of crater that the types of munitions used by the IDF would, and was instead the result of a Hamas rocket fired at Israel, which malfunctioned and fell short.
Islamic Jihad rejected Hagari’s claim, instead accusing Israel of attempting to evade accountability for the “brutal massacre” that resulted, reported Al Ahram’s live update page. The group argued that Israel’s order to evacuate al-Ahli and reports of a previous explosion at the hospital served as evidence that the hospital was deliberately targeted by Israel. They also emphasized that the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb’s fall, and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israeli involvement.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters traveling with the President on the way to Israel that President Joe Biden has directed his “national security team” to conduct an investigation into the bombing of the Gaza hospital. CNBC reports that two unnamed U.S. officials have reported that the U.S.’s “independent assessment” indicates that it was the Islamic Jihad whose misfired rocket destroyed the Gaza hospital, not the IDF.
Former Virginia state Sen. Richard Black, a retired Army colonel and Vietnam veteran, in comments to this news service observed that he was seeing huge blast damage at the hospital. “I’m not aware of any Hamas rockets that have that explosive power,” he said. “Traditionally, Palestinians have employed modest warheads, not massive ones. No Palestinian missile blast has ever had a very high casualty rate before this.”
“I’ve directed jets that dropped over 1,000 bombs in battle at my command. The damage I’m seeing suggests that multiple bombs with warheads of 1,000 or 2,000 pounds,” Black continued. “I can’t say definitively who is at fault, but U.S. and Israeli pronouncements are not entirely persuasive.”
Also casting doubt on Israeli claims are reports by UN agencies on the bombing of civilian targets prior to the hit on the al-Ahli hospital. In one, the World Health Organization stated that there had been 115 attacks on healthcare facilities in Gaza and the majority of its hospitals were not functioning. In a second report, the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) reported that an Israel strike killed six people at one of its schools in Gaza where thousands of Palestinians were sheltering.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova did not directly accuse the Israelis of responsibility for the bombing, but did say they had to prove that they didn’t do it. “Naturally, we view such a … deadly attack as a crime,” Zakharova told Sputnik radio, reported TASS. She pushed for Israel to provide evidence of its non-involvement with the Gaza hospital attack. “[Israel] must not just comment in media outlets or on social media, it must produce the evidence,” she added. Zakharova also called on the United States to provide satellite images that would help clarify the situation and identify the perpetrator of the deadly attack.
