US intelligence estimates that an explosion earlier this week at Gaza’s Al-Ahli hospital killed between 100 and 300 people, US media reported on Thursday, times as many were killed in an Israeli attack on the site.
Initial reports after Wednesday night’s blast cited claims by Hamas health authorities that the hospital had been targeted by Israeli airstrikes, putting the death toll at 500.
However, Israel has presented evidence that the explosion was likely caused by a failed rocket launch from Gaza, probably by the Islamic Jihad terrorist group in Palestine. Both Hamas and the group have denied the claims and the Arab world has continued to largely blame Israel, with massive protests erupting in several regional capitals following the incident.
An intelligence document obtained by CNN on Thursday claimed that there was “only minor structural damage to the hospital” and that Israel was not responsible for the explosion.
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Images of the aftermath of the explosion showed a parking lot with charred and heavily damaged cars, but surrounding buildings were intact but showed signs of damage from shrapnel. Images of the hospital after the attack released by satellite monitoring group Maxar show that the hospital buildings appeared mostly intact.
IDF officials say their airstrikes typically leave large craters and level buildings.
People search through rubble outside the Ahli Arab hospital compound in central Gaza on October 18, 2023, after an explosion there. (Mahmud Hams/AFP)
Hamas says 471 people were killed. In the hours after the explosion, media outlets around the world cited the initial figure of 500 people, even as they questioned how that number could have been credibly arrived at so quickly.
A senior European intelligence source told AFP that he believed a maximum of 50 people were killed.
IDF spokesman Jonathan Conricus also disputed the Hamas-run ministry’s figures, asking: “Where are all the bodies?”
AFP correspondents saw dozens of bodies at the scene, with medics and civilians recovering corpses wrapped in white sheets, blankets or black plastic bags.
People gather around the wrapped bodies of victims who died in a nighttime explosion in the parking lot of Ahli Arab Hospital in central Gaza on October 18, 2023. (Photo by AFP)
The initial blame on Israel for the hospital explosion led to a rise in anti-Israel demonstrations and anti-Semitic incidents worldwide. Riots and mass protests broke out in Jordan and other countries, and Hezbollah called for a global day of jihad, while Jordan held a summit scheduled for Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and the leader the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas canceled. Israel has arranged evacuation flights to repatriate citizens from Turkey while issuing a high-level travel warning for the country.
Biden said Wednesday that the previous evening’s explosion was likely caused by a Palestinian terrorist group, based on a Pentagon report and Israeli intelligence.
US State Department spokesman Matt Miller on Thursday denounced media organizations for reporting on the Hamas-run Health Ministry’s claim that Israeli forces were responsible for the incident.
Israeli army spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari shows a graphic of alleged rocket launches near Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza to the press at a news conference in Tel Aviv, Oct. 18, 2023. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
“I don’t want to play media critic here, but I have to say that I think this event was a reminder that everyone, and that includes government officials and everyone who is watching this conflict, [that] It would be wise for all of us to pause and gather all the information before deciding what we believe and what we don’t believe,” Miller said during a press conference.
“I’ve seen a number of reports taking the words of Hamas at face value – the words of a terrorist organization,” Miller said.
A reporter responded to Miller that much of the media’s skepticism toward U.S. and Israeli claims stems from claims made after 9/11 “that got us into the war in Iraq based on a lie that was based on very was defended at a high level, even behind the scenes.” [Miller’s] Podium.”
Miller countered that while Israel had provided the public with significant evidence supporting its claim that the Gaza hospital explosion was caused by a stray Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket, Hamas had failed to do the same, although it continued to do so blame Israel for the incident.
As part of its evidence, the military presented a wiretapped conversation between Hamas officials that said the explosion was caused by a PIJ projectile that fell short and showed that the parking lot had no crater in the ground and in the There was no structural damage to buildings nearby – both of which would normally have been left behind in an IDF attack.
An explosion near Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, October 17, 2023. (Via social media, used under Section 27a of the Copyright Law)
Hamas initially claimed that the explosion occurred at Al-Ahli Hospital itself, but footage from Wednesday morning showed that it occurred in the hospital’s parking lot and that none of the surrounding buildings sustained significant structural damage.
Several videos have also emerged showing the moment the rocket reached its target and exploded in the Palestinian enclave on Tuesday.
Hospitals and their grounds were considered safe havens for Gazans homeless or displaced by the bombing, as they were relatively spared from strikes. The IDF says it does not target hospitals.
Lebanese demonstrators wave Palestinian national flags and shout slogans in solidarity with the people of Gaza in downtown Beirut following an explosion in the parking lot of a hospital in the Gaza Strip on October 17, 2023. (Photo by ANWAR AMRO / AFP)
Israel has previously accused Islamic Jihad of causing the deaths of Palestinians through rockets that missed targets inside the Gaza Strip.
Israel has carried out a campaign of intense airstrikes since October 7, when about 2,500 terrorists breached Israel’s border fence, poured into Israel by land, sea and air under a barrage of thousands of rockets and killed about 1,400 people, the vast majority of them civilians. Terrorists also took at least 203 hostages of all ages and nationalities in the Gaza Strip.
Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’ infrastructure and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group that dominates the Gaza Strip.
Israeli bombings have killed about 3,700 people, according to health officials in the Gaza Strip.