Palestinian Islamic Jihad was responsible for hospital hit
IDF Spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari on Wednesday laid out the IDF’s full comprehensive intelligence case to prove that a failed rocket launched by Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip was the cause behind the damage and the death Tuesday night at Al-Ahli Arab Hospital.
Hagari presented audio recordings in which Hamas members can be heard saying to each other that PIJ was responsible for the explosion.
He also presented a detailed video, topping off earlier videos put out by Israel’s public-relations apparatus, showing different stages of the rocket’s trajectory and the layout of the hospital being hit. A camera that Channel 12 had over Gaza City all night captured the rocket launch and hit as well.
The press conference was a nod to Israel’s acknowledgment of the importance of the international perception of this particular hit, as a ground invasion into Gaza is imminent.
“The IDF has concluded an after-action review and confirmed that PIJ was responsible for the strike,” Hagari said. “We did an immediate review for all relevant branches of the IDF.”
The IDF’s timeline for Tuesday goes as follows:
• At 6:15 p.m., a barrage of
rockets was fired by Hamas at Israel.
• At around 7 p.m., a barrage of 10 rockets was fired by PIJ from a cemetery near the hospital.
• Also at around 7 p.m.,
there were reports of an explosion at the hospital.
“According to our intelligence, Hamas checked reports and itself understood that a PIJ rocket misfired,” Hagari said. “Hamas then decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what happened,” inflating casualties along the way.
Questioned regarding these numbers, he said the intelligence on that issue needed to remain classified, but it has been shared with Israeli political officials.
Furthermore, he said, the PIJ rocket was fired from a nearby cemetery and hit a parking lot next to the hospital. The IDF released video footage of the parking lot to back this up.
Hagari went into extensive detail about the rocket itself: Most of its propellant was still within the rocket when it hit because it had traveled a shorter amount of time than intended. Had it traveled farther, as intended, it would have used up more of the propellant.
Its short trip left the excess propellant and contributed to additional fires after the rocket struck, Hagari said, adding that there is visual evidence showing infrared imagery of the nearby parking lot.
The IDF confirmed that there was no IDF fire by land,
Many in the mainstream media parroted Hamas’s line, and within minutes, it seemed that the whole battle for public opinion had been flipped on its head. Israel went from being the victim of an ISIS-style massacre to the perpetrator of a slaughter at a Gaza City hospital.
At a nightly recap of the day’s events, IDF Spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari, when asked about the report, said he would have to check.
In the meantime, the story continued to spread, triggering angry protests in the Arab world, including riots in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman.
Critics said Hagari should have denied the report on the spot to cast doubt on Hamas’s version. But that he waited until the incident could be checked gave Israel’s later denial more credibility.
Israel’s “case” was ironically helped by a real-time clip from the anti-Israel Al Jazeera network of the rocket launch, showing what appeared to be a rocket fired from Gaza reversing course and hitting the hospital.
This was followed by senior Israeli officials saying that Islamic Jihad appeared to have fired the rocket, and many news outlets were forced to change their headlines. The story went from “Israel hits Gaza hospital, killing hundreds” to “Hamas, Israel blame each other for hospital explosion.”
President Isaac Herzog took the media to task for accepting Hamas’s version of events.
“An Islamic Jihad missile has killed many Palestinians at a Gazan hospital – Shame on the media who swallow the lies of Hamas and Islamic Jihad – broadcasting a 21st-century blood libel around the globe,” he posted on X.
But still more evidence was needed – not necessarily to convince those sitting at home, but rather those sitting in positions of power. Hagari provided part of that evidence in a press conference on Wednesday in which, in a dry and matter-of-fact manner, he presented some of the intelligence, including videos and a tape of a conversation between two Hamas terrorists admitting that the errant rocket had fallen short after being fired from a cemetery behind the hospital.
That the IDF was willing to release that recording shows the degree to which it understood that this event could have a profound impact on the waging of the war, and that releasing the raw intelligence material was worth the price of perhaps revealing intelligence methods.
And it seemed to have worked.
US President Joe Biden, during comments before he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv, said: “I am deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears that it was done by the other team and not you. But there are a lot of people out there who are not sure, so we have got to overcome a lot of things.”
There are some people “out there” who would not be convinced of Palestinian culpability if they were shown pieces of the rocket that hit the hospital that read, “Property of Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
But there are others for whom facts matter. And one way of, as Biden said, “overcoming those who are not sure” is by presenting the intelligence that proves the facts.
The IDF understood that this event could have strategic ramifications on Israel’s ability to wage this war, and this time it moved quickly to provide the evidence, overcoming an inherent institutional tendency not to reveal too much because of tactical consid
footage from the scene showing a number of cars near the hospital on fire.
Asked about the risks of exposing this intelligence to the world, Hagari indicated the decision was made in light of a broad range of factors.