Gaza hospital bombing: Israel attributes strike to Islamic Jihad

2023-10-18 03:11:12

The Israeli army on Tuesday attributed to Palestinian Islamic Jihad the shooting which hit the grounds of a hospital in Gaza City, killing at least 200 people according to local authorities. “According to information we obtained from intelligence services, based on several sources, Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket attack that hit the hospital,” the Israeli army said in a statement.

At the time of the shooting, “a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing very close to the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza”, according to the army, suggesting that one of them fell on the establishment.

“Let the whole world know: the barbaric terrorists in Gaza are the ones who attacked the hospital in Gaza and not the Israeli army,” responded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office. “Those who brutally killed our children are killing their own children.”

The entire world should know: It was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF.

Those who brutally murdered our children also murder their own children.

— Benjamin Netanyahu (@netanyahu) October 17, 2023

“Hundreds of patients, wounded and displaced people” were in the hospital, said the media office of Hamas, the Palestinian movement which controls the Gaza Strip.

Islamic Jihad, another armed organization in Gaza

Islamic Jihad is another armed Islamist organization present in the Gaza Strip, which is also targeted by Israeli bombings on the Palestinian territory in the war between Israel and Hamas which has left thousands dead in 10 days. It broke out following a bloody attack by Hamas commandos on Israeli soil on October 7.

Israeli retaliatory strikes on the Gaza Strip have killed around 3,000 people, mostly Palestinian civilians, according to local authorities. More than 1,400 people were killed in Israel, most of them civilians killed on the day of the attack, the deadliest since the creation of the State of Israel.