Facing near-unanimous condemnation from Arab countries for an explosion at a Gaza hospital, Israel is seeking to battle against the perception based on initial reports that the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike.
On Tuesday, the Ahli Arab Hospital exploded. Amid reports of 500 people being killed — numbers that were later lowered — the terrorist group Hamas said the hospital was attacked by Israel.
The claim was initially given credence because since the Oct. 7 slaughter of more than 1,400 people in Israel by Hamas terrorists, Israel has carried out a massive bombing campaign in Gaza, causing vast destruction.
A day later, the Times of Israel reported that the explosion took place in the hospital’s parking lot, and that no surrounding structure suffered severe damage.
But by then, multiple governments had condemned Israel. Saudia Arabia, for example, called the incident a “heinous crime committed by the Israeli occupation forces,” according to The Washington Post.
However, the Israel Defense Forces has pushed back against the Hamas narrative by presenting evidence on social media that the explosion was caused by a group called Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which has been lobbing rockets into Israel.
One part of the campaign to convince the world that Hamas lied was the release of an audio file of intercepted communications between two Hamas terrorists.
Islamic Jihad struck a Hospital in Gaza—the IDF did not.
Listen to the terrorists as they realize this themselves: pic.twitter.com/u7WyU8Rxwz
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023
The translation posted with the recording showed one terrorist saying, “We are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
“It’s from us?” the translation showed the second terrorist as saying.
A discussion between the two terrorists follows.
“It looks like it.”
“Who is saying this?
A failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization hit the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City.
IAF footage from the area around the hospital before and after the failed rocket launch by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization: pic.twitter.com/AvCAkQULAf
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023
“It looks like the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel.”
Eventually, one said, “It couldn’t have found another place to explode?”
“They shot it from the cemetery behind the hospital,” the other terrorist responded.
IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said during a briefing that Hamas used the blast for propaganda purposes, according to the Times of Israel.
“According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had misfired, and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened,” he said.
This is the tragic result of firing rockets from densely populated neighborhoods. pic.twitter.com/7iAxwLUQzV
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 18, 2023
“They went as far as to inflate the number of casualties,” he continued.
Hamas “understood with absolute certainty that it was a rocket misfired by Islamic Jihad that damaged the hospital,” he said.
“Analysis of our aerial footage confirms that there was no direct hit of the hospital itself. The only location damaged is outside the hospital in the parking lot, where we can see signs of burning, no cratering and no structural damage to nearby buildings.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.