After Hamas and Arab countries blamed Israel for the attack on Al-Ahli Hospital, the IDF cited evidence that a faulty rocket fired by Palestinian terrorists at Israel caused the hospital to explode.
The Israel Defense Forces said Tuesday night that it was not behind a hospital bombing in the Gaza Strip that Hamas leadership claimed killed hundreds of people, and that a rocket fired by Palestinian Gaza terrorists at Israel was responsible for the explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital.
The Palestinians and much of the Arab world, as usual, placed the blame on Israel, saying that it was Israel that struck the medical facility and that hundreds of people were killed as a result. Jerusalem’s actions were immediately condemned by Jordan, Turkey, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry initially said at least 500 people were killed, AP reported. That figure was later revised to 200-300 people, AFP reported.
The Hamas terrorist group called the bombing a «war crime» and the World Health Organization, led by Marxist Gebreissus, also issued a condemnation of Israel.
After initially saying the IDF was probing the circumstances of the incident, it denied involvement, saying there were no operations in the area at the time of the blast.
In a short video circulated in English, IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that «analysis of IDF operational systems shows that terrorists in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets that passed in close proximity to the Ahli Hospital in Gaza at the time of the strike.»
«Intelligence available to us from multiple sources indicates that Islamic Jihad was responsible for the failed rocket launch that struck the hospital in Gaza,» he added.
The Israeli military said that terrorist organizations based in Gaza have consistently fired rockets indiscriminately at Israel, and since the war began on October 7, some 450 rockets have landed in Gaza, «endangering and damaging the lives of Gazans.»
Several videos have been published online that depict of a Palestinian rocket hitting and exploding on the grounds of a hospital.
One of the videos, taken at Kibbutz Netiv Haasara, matches footage taken by Al Jazeera TV, which also shows a Palestinian terrorist rocket falling in Gaza. Another video published by Palestinian media shows the rocket exploding at Al-Ahli Hospital.
The Al Jazeera footage was geolocated by experts who arrived at the hospital.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying: «So that the whole world will know: it was the barbaric terrorists in Gaza who attacked the hospital in Gaza, not the IDF.»
«Those who brutally murdered our children are also murdering their children.»
President Yitzhak Herzog called the accusations that Israel struck the hospital a «blood libel.»
«An Islamic Jihad rocket killed many Palestinians in a Gaza hospital, a place where lives should be saved,» Herzog tweeted.
«Shame on the media who swallow the lies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, broadcasting a 21st century blood libel around the world. Shame on the vile terrorists in Gaza who willfully shed the blood of the innocent,» he wrote.
But the world does not want to realize that it was not an Israeli missile.
Before and after Israel denied involvement, Arab and Muslim countries accused Israel of carrying out the attack on the hospital. They did not amend those statements. It is impossible to convince the convinced unwilling to see and hear what they do not want to see and hear.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning after what he called a «massacre at a hospital.»
Jordan said late Tuesday that U.S. President Joe Biden’s meeting with King Abdullah, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sissi and Abbas on Wednesday in Amman had been canceled. The White House later confirmed the canceled meeting. It will cost Jordan, which is little more than totally dependent on the U.S. and Israel.
A White House spokesman said in a statement that the decision to cancel the Amman summit was made after Biden’s consultations with Abdullah «and in light of the days of mourning declared by Abbas following the hospital bombing.»
Biden sent Abdallah «his deepest condolences for the loss of innocent lives in the Gaza hospital bombing and wished a speedy recovery to the wounded,» the White House spokesman said, careful not to place blame on any party.
«Biden looks forward to meeting with these leaders in person in the near future and has agreed to maintain regular and direct contact with each of them over the coming days,» the White House official added.
Hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets across the West Bank on Tuesday night to protest the hospital bombing. In Ramallah, Palestinians chanted, «The people want the fall of the president» to protest Abbas’ inaction in the face of the war in Gaza.
Earlier, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the hospital bombing «the latest example devoid of the most basic human values.»
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit called on Western leaders to «immediately stop this tragedy,» adding that «Arab mechanisms will document these war crimes and the criminals will not go unpunished.»
Egypt’s Foreign Ministry said Cairo considers «the deliberate bombing of civilians a serious violation of international humanitarian law and the most basic values of humanity.» It called on Israel to «immediately end its policy of collective punishment of the population of the Gaza Strip.»
King Abdullah of Jordan said he considered the incident «a heinous war crime that cannot be tolerated: Israel must immediately cease its brutal aggression against the Gaza Strip».
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry condemned «Israel’s criminal actions,» Anwar Gargash, advisor to the president of the United Arab Emirates, deplored «the Israeli shelling of the Baptist Hospital,» and Bahrain took the opportunity to call for an «urgent ceasefire in Gaza.»
And the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah movement called for a «day of rage» to condemn the hospital bombing, blaming Israel for what it called a «massacre.»
The fact that Israel has been attacked by Hamas terrorists and has been subjected to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip for decades, they somehow did not bring up. No one said that if Hamas had not attacked Israel, there would have been no casualties in the Gaza Strip.
Hospitals and their surrounding areas were seen as a refuge for Gazans made homeless or displaced by the bombing because they were relatively safe from the strikes.
The IDF never strikes hospitals, but it nevertheless took more than two hours to respond to allegations of a deadly airstrike.
Israel has blamed Islamic Jihad and Hamas for Palestinian deaths from rockets that fall in Gaza before, but who in the world cares about Palestinians killed by Palestinians themselves? No one. It’s another matter if Palestinian terrorists are killed by Israel. That’s where all the leftists, progressives, and useful idiots of the world raise a terrible howl about the crimes of the Israeli military against «peaceful, innocent Palestinians.» And the fact that «peaceful, innocent Palestinians» are just committing terrorist attacks and killing Israelis is of no interest to anyone. That’s «fighting for freedom.» Reminder to readers: the Gaza Strip is free. It is not occupied by Israel, as the fighters for a «free Palestine» lie.
Israel is now in an 11-day war with Hamas following the terror group’s October 7 massacre, when at least 3,000 terrorists stormed into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing more than 1,400 people and taking 150-200 hostages of all ages under cover of a barrage of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli cities and towns.
The vast majority of those killed in the militant takeover of border communities were civilians — men, women, children and the elderly. Entire families were shot in their homes, and more than 260 people were killed at an open-air festival «for peace with Palestine,» many of them amid horrific terrorist brutality in what Biden said was «the worst massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust.»
The world’s mostly left-wing media has traditionally blamed Israel for everything and defended Palestinian and Islamic terrorists, which is the same thing,
turning a blind eye to their crimes.
Here it is appropriate to remind the leftist media and all leftists who defend the rights of Palestinian and Islamic terrorists of the words spoken by one of the leaders of Hamas, Mahmoud al-Zahar, as early as December 2022: «After the destruction of Israel, we will take over the whole world. The whole earth will be under a regime where there will be no injustice, no oppression, no Zionism, no traitorous Christianity.»
On October 7, Hamas terrorists went out to cut the heads off Israeli children and women in fulfillment of Islam’s idea of world domination. This is how they see the world where
injustice, oppression, Zionism and traitorous Christianity. Obviously, they are willing to cut off the heads of most people on earth to achieve this.
Pray for Israel and help Israel in its struggle against Arab savagery and Islamic barbarism. Because if Israel falls, we will all be victims of an Islamic massacre on a global scale.
Boris Demash, specially for Cyprus Daily News