Multiple news outlets immediately blamed Israel for an explosion at a hospital in Gaza that reportedly claimed the lives of 471 people Tuesday; however, intelligence reports indicate that Israel was not responsible for the strike on the civilian hospital.
U.S. officials have indicated that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group is responsible for Tuesday’s explosion at a hospital in Gaza, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“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,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson stated.
After reports surfaced that news outlets wrongly attributed blame to Israel over Tuesday’s Gaza hospital tragedy, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) posted a statement on Instagram alongside screenshots of the headlines news outlets had originally used to blame Israel for the air strike.
“These are all the news outlets that just assumed Israel would bomb a civilian hospital. Israel did not do that. Hamas rockets misfired. Even Palestinian and Arab news outlets reported it,” Crenshaw stated. “And Biden needs to confirm and also confirm unwavering support for Israel’s defense. It must be clear that Hezbollah and Iran will suffer severe consequences if they begin a multi-front attack.”
Crenshaw shared screenshots of headlines and posts such as “Hundreds feared dead of injured in Israeli air strike on hospital in Gaza, Palestinian officials say,” from BBC News; “Palestinian health ministry says 200 to 300 people may have been killed in Israeli strike on hospital in Gaza,” from CNN; “Breaking News: An Israeli airstrike hit a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, killing at least 200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which said the number of casualties was expected to rise,” from The New York Times.
Other news outlets that immediately blamed Israel for Tuesday’s strike included The Associated Press, which claimed at least 500 people were killed in an explosion “caused by an Israeli airstrike,” and Reuters, which claimed an Israeli airstrike had “killed hundreds of Palestinians at a Gaza City hospital crammed with patients and displaced people.”
After media outlets across the world blamed Israel for an air strike on a hospital in Gaza, Israel Defense Forces, shared a post on X with photos of several news articles that wrongly blamed Israel for Tuesday’s tragedy.
“Media outlets around the globe were quick to run Hamas’ headlines-without fact checking,” Israel Defense Forces wrote. “We now know that an Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israel misfired and hit the hospital in Gaza.”
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden addressed Tuesday’s incident alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“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,” Biden 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.”
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Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, an IDF spokesperson, released a statement in a video on social media, confirming Israel’s innocence in the devastating explosion that claimed innocent lives at a hospital in Gaza.
“I can confirm that an analysis of the IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit,” he said. “Intelligence from few sources that we have in our hands indicates that the Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch, which hit the hospital in Gaza. I repeat, this is the responsibility of Islamic Jihad that killed innocents in the hospital in Gaza.”
