All of the evidence that shows Hamas was responsible for hospital explosion
Explore More
Hamas immediately blamed Tuesday’s explosion at the Al Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City on Israel and claimed more than 500 people were killed in a heinous, targeted war crime.
But after an investigation and widespread protests in the Arab world, the Israel Defense Forces determined that the terror group’s Islamic Jihad arm was actually behind the disaster and had exaggerated the death toll in its attempts to frame it as an Israeli attack.
Here’s how Israel backed up its claim:
IDF briefing
On Wednesday, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari released the findings of his military’s After Action Review, which concluded “a barrage of around 10 rockets was fired by Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery” at 6:59 p.m., the same time word came of an explosion at the medical center.
He said investigators found that “there was no IDF fire” that hit the hospital, and radar systems tracked Hamas rockets fired from close to it.
He also cited videos that showed a failed rocket falling in the hospital compound and said investigators found no evidence of “craters and structural damage” that would have been consistent with an airstrike.
“The IDF acts in accordance with international law,” Hagari said, noting that some media outlets “ran with Hamas’ lies.”
“In conclusion, this incident shows how allegations — in this case, false and baseless allegations made by terrorists — against Israel can spread and inflame tensions in the region,” he said, referring to widespread protests in the Arab world.
Hagari said Hamas was also “inflating the number of casualties” in its narrative of the events.
Hamas audio recording
The IDF also released an audio recording Wednesday morning of what it said were two Islamic Jihad terrorists conceding responsibility for the accidental attack.
“Is it from us?” one operative is heard asking on the recording, according to the IDF’s translation.
“It looks like it,” his cohort replies.
The purported members of Islamic Jihad are then heard acknowledging that the shrapnel of the missile “are local pieces, and not Israeli shrapnel,” from rockets fired from the “cemetery behind the hospital.”
“But God bless, it couldn’t have found another place to explode?” one of them asked.
US defense assessment
President Biden, in Israel to show solidarity with the staunch US ally, told reporters Wednesday that Israel was not to blame for the attack, citing “the data I was shown by my Defense Department.”
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you,” Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a Tel Aviv press conference.
Follow along with The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel
“While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts, and open source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,” Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, said in a statement.
Independent analysis
Several independent analysts said their preliminary investigations supported the IDF’s claims, including GeoConfirmed, a group of volunteers that uses geolocation data and other publicly available information to evaluate incidents.
The group said on X that “a missile launched by a Palestinian group [which] exploded mid-air (reason unknown) and one piece fell on the hospital causing an explosion.”
It also cited Australian Strategic Policy Institute Cyber, Technology & Security researcher Nathan Ruser’s debunking of footage that purported to prove the IDF had launched an airstrike at the hospital.
Ruser said he had proven that the footage was actually “from a totally different incident, an hour after the hospital blast, and shows a strike 1.5-4km away.”
“We have none of the indicators of an airstrike — none,” Michael Knights, an expert on security and military issues at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Wall Street Journal.
Follow along with The Post’s coverage of Israel’s war with Hamas
“What you have instead is a scene that very clearly was hit by a rolling fireball,” he said adding that was consistent with the Israeli military’s explanation that a rocket misfired. Knights also said he doubted that would have resulted in a “mass casualty incident.”
Other Hamas rocket misfires
Israel also noted that 450 rockets had “misfired and fell inside Gaza” in the 11 days since war broke out, and the IDF released an infographic of the failed launches to support its assertion about the hospital explosion.
Video footage showing no impact craters
The IDF also released aerial footage of the hospital compound filmed Wednesday morning which does not show any of the impact that would have been caused by an Israeli missile.
It instead illustrates a lack of a large crater in the parking lot where the explosion occurred.
So let’s walk through it.
We now have video of the scene showing the explosion is from the parking lot and the buildings are in tact. There is no crater, no building demolished. This is inconsistent with the type of bomb many were suggesting yesterday. pic.twitter.com/HFKKxS8kvr pic.twitter.com/SpgG3Ktbiy
— AG (@AGHamilton29) October 18, 2023Hospital statement
The Episcopal Church in Jerusalem and the Middle East runs the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital, and on Wednesday officials walked back a statement blaming Israel, according to the Journal.
Hosam Naoum, the Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem, reportedly declined to assign blame when asked by reporters and said the hospital’s parking lot was directly hit by the explosion, not the medical facility.
ncG1vNJzZmimqaW8tMCNnKamZ2Jlf3R7kGlmanBflrmtec6fZK2glWKyt7XDnqWcnV2ptaLAjKyfqK%2BjYrWiucCsZLCZo2K%2Fpr%2FPqKWsoZKhsm6yzqtkoaejpba1rctmnLGonKTAqrvNaA%3D%3D