Pentagon Confirms Terrorist Group, Not Israel, Attacked Gaza Hospital, Biden Says

President Biden on Wednesday told reporters that the Department of Defense has confirmed Israel’s assessment that the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization was responsible for the attack on al-Ahli Baptist Hospital at Gaza City. This comes as Hamas’s health ministry in Gaza has tried to blame Israel for the attack. The blast at the hospital took place late on Tuesday, not long before the president left Joint Base Andrews on Air Force One for his visit to Israel. Shortly after arriving, Mr. Biden, appearing alongside Prime Minister Netanyahu at a Tel Aviv hotel, said, “Based on what I’ve seen, it appears it was done by the other team, and not you.”When asked what military or intelligence information he had received that confirmed that assessment, Mr. Biden told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that “the data … was shown by my defense department.”Shortly after the attack on Tuesday, Israel emphatically denied involvement, saying that its technical analysis — which includes tracking of the rocket from its ascent in the Gaza Strip to its descent near the hospital, as well as video footage and intercepts of Hamas terrorists’ conversations — proves that the hospital attack was the result of a rocket fired by the terrorist group Palestinian Islamic Jihad toward Israel that landed short within Gaza City.Such attacks have happened innumerable times in recent years. The degree to which Israel has responded by disclosing detailed intelligence has convinced the Biden administration that the fault lies with the terrorists. Some Democrats came out quickly to condemn the attack without noting Israel’s denial that it was involved. Senator Sanders on Tuesday said that “the slaughter of over a thousand Israelis by Hamas in a terrorist attack is an unspeakable crime. The bombing of a Palestinian hospital is an unspeakable crime, as is the displacement of a million people without water, food, and medicine.”He seemed to refer to Israel’s warning to civilians living in northern Gaza to evacuate to the southern part of the strip before the Israeli army starts its planned land invasion. The Israeli warning was designed to lessen noncombatant casualties as Israel pursues armed terrorists. Mr. Sanders, a socialist who ran for president on the Democratic Party line, also proclaimed, “These unspeakable crimes must stop now. The bombs and missiles from both sides must end, massive humanitarian aid must be rushed to Gaza, and the hostages must be returned to their families.”After speaking with Mr. Netanyahu and the Hashemite king, Abdullah II of Jordan, Mr. Biden initially said that he was “outraged and deeply saddened by the explosion at the Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza, and the terrible loss of life that resulted.” He said that he has directed his “national security team to continue gathering information about what exactly happened.” Mr. Biden also blamed Gaza officials for spreading misinformation about the attack, and said American officials had to make it clear that it was Islamic Jihad, and not Israel. “There’s a lot of people out there who are not sure,” Mr. Biden said. “So we’ve gotta overcome a lot of things.”The Gaza Health Ministry — meaning, Hamas, which controls it — has claimed that about 500 were killed in the bombing. Yet Hamas published the casualty figures within minutes of the attack, which calls into question their accuracy. The Hamas-run ministry has accused Israel of launching the rocket. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, released drone footage on Tuesday that he said showed the rocket attack was not consistent with Israeli munitions and instead is similar to the thousands of rockets that, in recent years, were fired by terrorist groups but that fell on Gaza.“This has been a trend over the last few rounds of conflict,” where “misfires” by Islamic Jihad “have posed an extreme danger to civilians in Gaza,” Admiral Hagari said.

Pentagon Confirms Terrorist Group, Not Israel, Attacked Gaza Hospital, Biden Says

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