Scene of the explosion at the Ahly Arab hospital Photo: Oliver Alexander
Unfortunately for the Israelis, Hananya Naftali, a famous Israeli «Influencer» in social media, which has ties to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has already posted a message on X that appears to claim that the hospital explosion was caused by an Israeli airstrike.
His message was widely misinterpreted as an official statement from the Israeli government, as Naftali had previously posted a video of himself in an IDF uniform, where he claimed that Netanyahu had appointed him to a «digital warfare» task force that «defends Israel in the media» »
Naftali later deleted the post and clarified that he had «shared this information by mistake,» but by then pro-Palestinian supporters throughout the Arab world and beyond had shared it on social media. to support their claim that Israel carried out the attack.
By this point in the evening, many regional armed groups, including Hezbollah, were calling on Arabs throughout the Middle East to take to the streets in a united display of rage against Israel.
Back in Gaza, Palestinian doctors began a press conference on the site of the hospital where the “massacre” was announced.
They spoke surrounded by corpses wrapped in plastic sheets, and as the camera slowly pulled back, a young Palestinian man could be seen sitting on the ground at the foot of the lectern, clutching the bloody body of a child.
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in response, he stated: “I call on all humanity to take action to stop Israel’s unprecedented brutality in the Gaza Strip,” referring in particular to the hospital explosion. Turkish protesters began throwing fireworks and other flaming projectiles in Istanbul.
Spontaneous protests broke out in the occupied West Bank as thousands of Palestinians gathered in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority [PA]. They also gathered in Hebron, the southern West Bank and the northern Israeli city of Haifa, as well as in East Jerusalem. Video footage from Ramallah shows PA vehicles ramming demonstrators.
In Jordan, protesters tried to break into the Israeli embassy in Amman, and the US consulate in Lebanon came under fire. Crowds of people also took to the streets in Tunisia, where large protests are rare.
By 21:00 Moscow time, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was ready to announce the results of its investigation, saying on social media that the culprit was a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip. At 10:46 p.m., Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari released a video statement blaming Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas ally in the Gaza Strip, claiming that it misfired a missile that missed the target and hit the facility. He referred to Israeli intelligence, but did not immediately provide evidence.
The IDF statement said: “After further review and cross-examination of operational and intelligence systems, it became clear that the IDF did not strike hospital in the Gaza Strip.»
“The hospital was damaged by an unsuccessful rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization… Terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip are firing indiscriminately at Israel. Since the start of the war, approximately 450 rockets fired towards Israel have landed in Gaza, endangering and harming the lives of Gazans.»
About half an hour later, the IDF released footage that they said showed the rocket misfired in the sky and landed on a hospital. Senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have made similar statements to the IDF, blaming Islamic Jihad.
“The whole world needs to know that it was the brutal terrorists in Gaza who struck the hospital in Gaza, not the IDF,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote in Arabic on his X account, in an apparent attempt to directly reach Arabs across the region.< /p >
But the huge crowds already demonstrating across the Middle East didn't seem to be listening. There is deep mistrust of Israel, which has been accused of misdirecting and covering up previous incidents in which innocent Palestinians were killed.
Many cite the case of Shirin Abu Akle, an Al Jazeera correspondent killed during an Israeli raid on Jenin in the West Bank in May 2022. In this incident, Israel initially claimed that Palestinian militants had killed her, despite the overwhelming amount of evidence that quickly emerged. it turned out that she had been shot by an Israeli sniper. Israel later admitted that her own soldiers most likely killed her.
Doubts have also been raised about Israeli claims that the convoy of people evacuating Gaza last week was hit by a Palestinian rocket, not an Israeli rocket.< /p>
At a morning briefing with reporters on Wednesday, the Israeli military presented the footage from a drone, which they say proves the explosion was caused by an Islamic Jihad missile.
The IDF also stressed that the initial impact of the explosion was on the hospital's parking lot and not on the building itself. Pictures taken at first light showed that about 10 cars were burned, but adjacent buildings suffered minor structural damage and there was no sign of a crater that could have been caused by an Israeli missile.
The IDF later released a graphic , which they said showed the missile's trajectory over the hospital, based on its own radar data, and the location of the missile's launch site to the west and southwest of the hospital, a short distance from the coast.
Open source intelligence experts, including Mr. Bronk and the volunteer group GeoConfirmed, agreed that the evidence points to a random Palestinian missile, not an Israeli missile.
“No crater is visible in this image , no obvious fragmentation pattern consistent with the standard IAF [Israeli Air Force] JDAM/Mk80 series bombs,” Mr. Bronk wrote. «It's still not conclusive, but IF this is the extent of the damage, then I would say an airstrike looks less likely than a missile failure causing an explosion and fuel fire.»
GeoConfirmed reported that its initial investigation found that the strike was likely caused by «a rocket fired by the Palestinian group [that] exploded in mid-air (cause unknown), and one piece of debris fell on the hospital, causing an explosion.”
Fabian Hoffman, a researcher at the University of Oslo, suggested that «a Hamas rocket that had some kind of systematic error causing it to land on a hospital» was «the most plausible explanation at the moment.»
Mr Hoffmann suggested that the warhead of the Hamas rocket may not have exploded in the hospital car park, but rather that the explosion was caused by shrapnel and rocket fuel.
Some analysts have also questioned Hamas' claim that 500 people were killed in the explosion , saying such a high death toll is usually due to a much larger explosion.
“The photographs of the scene of the incident seem unexpected to me. does not correspond to an airstrike and does not correspond to claims that 500+ people died,” said Nathan Ruser, an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, stressing that these were his “preliminary” conclusions.
Only three vehicles appear to have sustained serious damage, one of which flipped onto its roof, but the others appear to have been damaged by fire rather than explosion. «This is the most visible damage to the ground, which, if this were the impact point of the spent munition, would mean that it is a fairly small payload,» said Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, an investigative journalism agency.
The bomb is large. power dropped by the Israeli Air Force will have an explosion radius of about 370 m and a damage zone of up to 33 m.
However, drone footage released by the Israeli military and analyzed by Mr. Ruser showed limited damage to tiles on the hospital roof. The researcher added: “This is consistent with an object that fell apart in the air.”
Air conditioners, solar panels and tin curtains on nearby buildings were also intact. There were reports of minor damage to the building's roof in the days before the explosion.
At the hospital site, Gaza rescue workers repeated the official line about Israeli responsibility in interviews with international news agencies.
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«This is a massacre,» Ahmed Tafesh, who helped with the reconstruction, told AFP, saying he had collected the eyes, hands, legs and heads of the dead. “I have never seen anything like this in my life.”
During the day, Gaza's health ministry gave the exact number of deaths in the hospital: 471. There would be no confirmation of this. below the level where an Israeli missile killed hundreds of people.
Landing in Israel at dawn yesterday, Mr Biden appeared to be briefed on the latest intelligence. He told his Israeli counterpart: “From what I saw, it looks like the other team did it, not you. “But,” he added, “there are a lot of people who are not sure. So we have a lot to overcome.»
Evidence of so-called friendly fire was not enough to stop the King of Jordan and the President of the Palestinian Authority to cancel his meetings with President Biden, who instead flew on Air Force One with an adapted schedule to visit Israel only.
America's National Security Council said yesterday afternoon that: «While we continue to gather information, our current assessment, based on analysis of aerial imagery, interceptions and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the bombing as of yesterday at the hospital in the Gaza Strip.»
This was not enough to prevent the ongoing war of words between members of the US Congress. Hours after the US said Israel was not responsible, two congresswomen failed to delete tweets blaming Israel. Rashida Tlaib, who identifies as Palestinian-American and is one of six left-wing Democrats in Congress known as The Squad, tweeted: “Israel just bombed Baptist Hospital, killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) for no reason. [President Biden] this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire and help de-escalate.»
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, another Democrat, tweeted: «The IDF is reported to have blown up one of the few places where the wounded and wounded can seek medical attention and shelter during war — this is terrible.»
Meanwhile, the IDF vented its fury on the BBC, pointing out that it had reported Hamas's initial claims of an Israeli airstrike that killed hundreds without checking them, but when the IDF said it was caused by a misfired rocket from the sector Gaza, the same BBC social media account reported the IDF's version, saying: «The BBC was unable to verify [these] claims.»
There was yet another twist to come in the propaganda war. Israel has released a recording of a conversation between two Hamas operatives, which it says proves they knew all along that it was not an Israeli rocket.
“They say it belongs to PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad ],” says one to the other, who replies: “Is this from us?”
“They were shooting from the cemetery behind the hospital,” says the first speaker. «What?» says the second, and is then told: “They shot him from the cemetery behind the hospital, he misfired and fell on them.”
The Telegraph was unable to independently verify the recording, which Israel claims is authentic. confirmed by his intelligence services. However, independent analysts have suggested that Israel may be spreading disinformation. They questioned the syntax, accent and idiom of the voices on the recording, calling it fake.
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