The massacre came on Tuesday evening, ten days after Hamas carried out a series of attacks against Israelis, and drew international condemnation as both sides in the conflict denied responsibility and denounced it as a new “war crime”.
Israel clarified on Wednesday morning that its military did not fire anything “land, sea or air” on Al Ahli Hospital. In making its case, the IDF insisted there was no structural damage to the buildings or a crater, which would be a signature of aerial bombardment. A faulty rocket launched by Islamic Jihad is believed to have accidentally fallen into the hospital and exploded, turning into an incendiary bomb. “Much of this damage would have been caused by propulsion, not just the warship., Israeli Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari announced during a morning press conference organized shortly before Joe Biden’s arrival in Israel. The US president echoed this version based on information from the Pentagon.
According to the IDF, approximately 450 Palestinian rockets that failed to ignite have landed in the Gaza Strip in the past eleven days.
A graveyard like a shooting range
On its X account (formerly Twitter), the Israeli military said it had also intercepted part of a phone conversation. Two Hamas operatives discuss an Islamic Jihad-launched missile that fell from a cemetery behind another hospital. “God, he couldn’t find another place to explode.”said one of the two interlocutors.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the attack.A horrific carnage cannot be tolerated or allowed to pass without establishing accountability”.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad accused Israel of lying to cover up its guilt. Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent representative to the United Nations, described the Israeli version as a “lie,” linking the fires to Israel’s order to evacuate civilians from northern Gaza, which also worries hospitals. The Anglican bishopric, which manages Al Ahli Hospital and its nearby church, confirmed that it had received at least three military orders in the previous days that were damaged. Without blaming one side or the other for events.
The Islamic Movement, which has ruled the Gaza Strip for sixteen years, said at least 471 people were killed in the explosion, according to the health ministry. A Gaza civil defense official put the death toll at 300. Figures disputed by Israel.
350 wounded were transferred Tuesday evening to Al Sifa Hospital, one of two main hospitals in the north of the Gaza Strip, already overburdened since the conflict between Hamas and Israel began.
Chaos reigns
However, confusion prevailed on Wednesday. For example, why did Hananya Naftali, an Israeli influencer who is known to be close to Netanyahu, publish a tweet and information about the conflict on social networks – later deleted, but some people kept a copy – in which he confirms Israel’s responsibility. An explosion?
The same person issued an apology on Wednesday, posting a video purporting to prove that a rocket fired from Gaza had actually accidentally hit Al Ahli Hospital.
It was one thing though, and it was too late, the damage was done, and French Ambassador Gerard Arad seemed to resign himself to a tweet about the truth about who was responsible for the attack, as public opinion already pointed to Israel as the culprit.
In the region, the cancellation of the meeting between Presidents Biden, Abbas, Al Sissi and King Abdullah in Jordan was the first political outcome, reactions in this direction were abundant. All Arab countries condemned the act and held Israel responsible. All, including Egypt and Jordan, which signed a decades-long peace treaty with Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco, normalized relations with the Jewish state in 2020 through the Abraham Accords.
All information since the Hamas attack on Israel
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