Israel blames Palestinians for a rocket misfire in Gaza City that fell onto hospital grounds.
The grounds of the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City erupted in flames at 6:59 pm local time (11:59 am on the US East Coast), Tuesday, October 17. Thousands of Palestinians had sought out the hospital grounds as their last refuge, their previous refuge, their mosques, blown up with direct hits. There, at the al-Ahli, they would be safe from Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza, the retaliation for the Hamas attack on Israel.
Hamas was quick to blame Israel for the explosion, for over 500 deaths and destruction of the hospital.
But the hospital was not our doing, said Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.
Aerial photography supplied by Israel showing lack of bomb craters at the hospital compared to size bomb craters elsewhere from Israeli Air Force bombs. Image: IDF.
“There are no craters here. The walls stay intact. This shows is it not an aerial munition that hit the parking lot” of the hospital, Hagari said. “Analysis of our aerial footage confirms that there was no direct hit of the hospital itself. The only location damaged is outside the hospital.”
Why would Israel’s deny a hospital attack when it hasn’t denied any previous bombing or apologized for collateral damage, which has been considerable?
In a full report issued by the IDF (Israeli Defense Force), Israel blames the explosion on the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a militant group sympathetic to Hamas. The explosion was a result of one of nine, ten or more missiles (reports vary) fired towards Israel from a cemetery near the hospital. Two or three of the missile trajectories shown in the report have the hospital under their flight path. One of them fell back to Earth, on top of the hospital’s grounds crowded by displaced Palestinians. As evidence to its claim, Israel points to an absence of any sizable crater, such as their bombs would have caused, and how the amount of flames seen in the video taken by Palestinians are consistent with the amount of unspent fuel of a rocket launched nearby. They also point out that there was no structural damage to the hospital building – as if to say that if they were aiming at the hospital, they would have hit it.
In addition, Israel says it had no active military operations in the vicinity of the hospital at the time.
Israel provides conclusive evidence of the Palestinian role with a telephone conversation picked up by Israeli eavesdroppers between Hamas operatives. (This conversation has not been independently verified)
Hamas Operative #1: “I’m you telling this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling”
Hamas Operative #2: So that’s why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic [Jihad]
Hamas Operative #1: It’s from us?
Hamas Operative #2: It’s looks like it. But God bless, it couldn’t have found another place to explode?
The IDF showed the rocket’s trajectories and appears to show launch points to predicted targets for the ten rockets launched on the October 17 barrage. It is not clear how Israel’s Iron Dome (missile defense, deserving of its own article) was able detect missiles in flight, would be able to detect a barely launched missile under the horizon. Perhaps, Israel was detecting launches from the Gaza Strip using drones?
Israel makes no mention of the Iron Dome in its report. It is up to CNN’s Erin Burnett to conclude that Iron Dome, Israel’s vaunted missile defense, deserves the credit. That we found no information on the Iron Dome using rocket launch detection from drones does not mean it doesn’t exist. Militaries can be very tight lipped about the reach and precision of their surveillance.
Image supplied by Israel plots 12 distinct rocket trajectories from a single launch point with at least 3 over the hospital. Image: IDF
“At 6:59 p.m., a barrage of around 10 rockets was fired by Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery. It was at the time, 6:59 p.m. — when there were reports of an explosion at the hospital in Gaza City,” said Rear Admiral Hagari.
Islamic Jihad has denied responsibility. The cause has not yet been independently verified.
https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20231020-gaza-hospital-blast-was-caused-by-misfired-rocket-says-european-military-source
Posted by: Ralph Grabowski | October 20, 2023 at 12:40 PM