The Pentagon has independently confirmed that a misfired Palestinian rocket caused an explosion outside a hospital in Gaza late Tuesday, after the Palestinian Health Ministry tried to pin the blame on Israel.
The confirmation, which was provided to ABC News by two Pentagon officials, came after President Biden announced his administration’s findings at a public meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel.
“Based on what I’ve seen, that appears as though it was done by the other team,” Biden said during a joint press conference shortly after landing in Israel. “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.”
Asked later how he had come to that conclusion, Biden said the “data I was shown by my Defense Department” confirmed that Israel was not behind Tuesday’s deadly hospital blast.
“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,” National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said during a news briefing on Tuesday.
According to the Gaza Health Ministry, a governmental organization controlled by Hamas, nearly 500 people were killed and hundreds more were wounded in the blast, which they cast as an intentional Israeli airstrike.
The IDF subsequently announced that the blast was caused by a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket and, hours later, released video evidence showing a rocket that was launched from within Gaza failing and plummeting back down into Gaza territory. The IDF also released an audio recording of what they claim is an intercepted conversation between two Hamas terrorists who acknowledge that Palestinian forces were responsible for the blast.
In the early hours after reports first emerged of the hospital explosion, international media outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Politico, Al Jazeera, and the Associated Press, wan with the ministry’s version of events despite a lack of independent confirmation.
While many publications later revised their headlines to reflect the competing accusations between Israel and Hamas, progressive House members, including Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), have yet to retract claims that the Jewish State was behind the attack.
“Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,” Tlaib wrote on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter, on Tuesday afternoon.“@POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate. Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me. We will remember where you stood,” the representative warned.
Omar has yet to walk back similar claims she made on Tuesday. “Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes. The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific,” Omar wrote following the early reports. “@POUTS needs to push for an immediate ceasefire to end this slaughter.”
However, despite the Pentagon’s confirmation and Biden’s public address, neither Tlaib nor Omar have yet to retract their previous comments, and instead shared links to articles arguing Netanyahu has lied before.
Images have circulated online showing Hamas announcing on Telegram, a social-media network, minutes before the hospital strike that the terrorist group was set to launch long-range missiles capable of striking the city of Haifa in northern Israel.
One minute before a rocket blew up a hospital in Gaza, Hamas announced on Telegram that they were launching their most robust weapons in the arsenal at Haifa.
No rockets reached Haifa. High probability these hit the hospital and set off secondary explosions within building. pic.twitter.com/xxfmzYxjru
— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.today (@JordanSchachtel) October 17, 2023
The news drew Netanyahu to condemn Hamas in an official statement following the attack. “So the whole world knows: The barbaric terrorists in Gaza are the ones who attacked the Gaza hospital, not the IDF,” he says in a statement. “Those who cruelly murdered our children, murder their children as well.”
Biden’s meeting with regional Arab leaders, which was set to follow his visit to Israel on Wednesday, was canceled after Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced that he would not be attending in the wake of the hospital blast.