US security officials said Wednesday that “Israel is not responsible” for the deadly explosion at a Gaza City hospital, bolstering its ally’s claim that the prior day’s blast was the result of a misfired Hamas rocket.
White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson offered the assessment hours after President Biden said as much at a Tel Aviv press conference as he cited “the data I was shown by my Defense Department.”
Watson said the NSC had analyzed “overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information” and would continue to collect intelligence on the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital explosion, which Gaza officials claimed killed some 500 people.
Independent investigators also threw cold water on the claims of Israeli responsibility and suggested the ruling Palestinian militant group inflated the death toll at the hospital in an attempt to inflame tensions in the region as Israel continues a relentless air assault in retaliation for Hamas’ coordinated terror attack on Oct. 7.
“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.
Israel’s military had cited radar and footage of the hospital’s compound that showed no structural damage to the facility or large cratering in the parking lot where the explosion happened, indicators that there was no air strike.
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Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said investigators found that a barrage of around 10 rockets was fired by Hamas’ Islamic Jihad arm at a nearby cemetery at 6:59 p.m., the same time as the explosion.
That was corroborated by a purported recording of two Islamic Jihad operatives conceding that their group had misfired a rocket from the cemetery.
“Islamic Jihad caused the casualties in the hospital,” Hagari said.
“We want the maximum transparency because we take any incident involving civilians very, very seriously,” he continued, contending that the IDF “acts in accordance with international law” and does not bomb hospitals.
Several open-source intelligence analysts concurred, citing limited shock-wave damage and the small size of the area affected by the blast.
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“At the moment, the preponderance of evidence does point to it being a Hamas or PIJ rocket hitting the area,” said Blake Spendley, an open-source intelligence analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses, a Virginia think tank, told the Journal.
“Something like a short-range rocket will cause more fire,” he explained, referring to the weapons Israel’s air force uses.
“With something like a JDAM [Joint Direct Action Munition] you will get a lot of blast energy, and not as much energy wasted in heat or fire or light. There were some characteristics with the Palestinians killed in the strike that have led me to believe that there was a lot more fire that came from the impact than just pure blast energy.”
Spendley reportedly estimated that a more realistic death toll would be about 50, rather than 500, but said a definitive conclusion would require postmortem analysis of victims and other forensic fieldwork that was unlikely to occur in the war zone.
“Still not conclusive, but IF this is the extent of the damage then I’d say an airstrike looks less likely than a rocket failure causing an explosion and fuel fire,” Justin Bronk, an analyst at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London, wrote on X.
Biden seemed to agree that more investigation was needed to debunk Hamas’ claim as he addressed the international press corps.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team,” the president said. “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.”
Suhaila Tarazi, the Palestinian American director of the Episcopalian Church-run hospital, said that four staff members were injured in the blast, and the facility was littered with broken glass and body parts Wednesday, according to the report.
2005: Israel unilaterally withdraws from the Gaza Strip over three decades after winning the territory from Egypt in the Six-Day War.
2006: Terrorist group Hamas wins a Palestinian legislative election.
2007: Hamas seizes control of Gaza in a civil war.
2008: Israel launches military offensive against Gaza after Palestinian terrorists fired rockets into the town of Sderot.
2023: Hamas launches the biggest attack on Israel in 50 years.
Over 1,400 Israelis are dead, more than 4,200 are wounded and at least 100 were taken hostage, with the death toll expected to rise after Hamas terrorists fired thousands of rockets and sent dozens of militants into Israeli towns.
Hamas terrorists were seen taking female hostages and parading them down the street in horrifying videos.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced “We are at war” and vowed Hamas would pay “a price it has never known.”
Gaza health officials report at least 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 12,500 injured.
Hosam Naoum, the Anglican archbishop in Jerusalem, on Wednesday reportedly walked back his blame of Israel for the explosion the day before and added that the building was not directly hit.
“We know the casualties were many,” he said, adding that thousands of evacuees had taken refuge at the facility in recent days as he called on Biden to push for justice and peace.