The Israeli military has released audio of what it said was a call between Hamas officials that it claims is proof Israel was not to blame for the deadly bombing of a Gaza hospital.
The strike occurred Tuesday night, and Hamas, a U.S.-designated terrorist group and the governing body of Gaza, quickly said at least 500 people were killed and immediately blamed Israel. However, the Israel Defense Forces strongly pushed back on the accusation and said the incident was the result of an errant strike from a separate terrorist group in Gaza, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
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On Wednesday, the IDF released an intercepted call, which the organization said was between two Hamas operatives, in which they can be heard discussing the claim that the strike was actually a failed PIJ rocket launched from a cemetery behind the hospital.
“They are saying [the rocket] belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It’s from us?” one alleged Hamas member asks in the clip, while the other responded, “It looks like it,” and added, “It misfired and fell on them. … God bless, couldn’t it have found another place to explode?”
Releasing the clip demonstrates one aspect of Israel’s intelligence-gathering capabilities and could lead to Hamas operatives changing how they communicate with one another.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Wednesday that Hamas knew the strike came from Gaza but sought to capitalize on the immediate outrage of a hospital getting hit and the significant casualty count, though he said it inflated it.
“According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had misfired, and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened,” he said. “They went as far as inflating the number of casualties. They understood, with absolute certainty, that it was a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad that damaged the hospital.”
There was no structural damage to the buildings around the hospital and no craters consistent with an airstrike in the area of the hospital, Hagari said, also noting the size of the explosion was consistent with unspent rocket fuel catching on fire.
“Analysis of our aerial footage confirms that there was no direct hit of the hospital itself,” he added. “The only location damaged is outside the hospital in the parking lot where we can see signs of burning; no cratering and no structural damage to nearby buildings.”
No Israeli strike — either by air, land, or sea — occurred near al Ahli Arab Hospital at the time of the deadly explosion, Hagari noted, also saying the IDF has tracked roughly 450 rockets that were launched from Gaza, malfunctioned, and landed within the strip.
“It is common for rockets that are fired at Israel to land short and fall inside Gaza. These rockets fall short of Israel and have caused Palestinian casualties. During this war, we have counted approximately 450 rockets that misfired and fell inside Gaza. Palestinian civilians pay the price,” the spokesman added.
Hamas is the largest and most capable militant group in the Palestinian territories, whereas PIJ is second, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s counterterrorism guide. Both are offshoots from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian branch and are committed to armed resistance against Israel and the creation of a Palestinian state in its place. Hamas has between 20,000 and 25,000 members, whereas PIJ has an estimated 1,000.
President Joe Biden, who left Washington on Tuesday for a trip to Israel to reaffirm U.S. support for its Middle Eastern ally, indicated he agrees with Israel’s version of events.
“The point is that I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you, but there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot — we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden said.
Biden met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a strong show of support for the United States’s biggest Middle Eastern ally. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken have already traveled to Israel since the Hamas and PIJ terrorist attacks in Israel earlier this month that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,400 people. The attack was the largest terrorist event in Israel’s history and has been referred to as the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
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The president was supposed to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, and King Abdullah II of Jordan, but it was called off following the hospital strike. There were also protests against Israel in several Middle Eastern countries under the presumption it committed the strike.
In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) released statements on social media excoriating Israel, with Tlaib laying the blame at Biden’s feet. Neither representative has retracted her statements despite the mounting evidence Israel was not to blame.
