The Israeli army stated on Wednesday that it sees no evidence of a direct airstrike on a hospital in the Gaza Strip yesterday, where hundreds of Palestinians were killed in an explosion. The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), which controls Gaza, accused Israel of being responsible for the blast. Israel claims that the explosion resulted from a rocket launched by Islamic Jihad that failed to reach its target. Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated in an English briefing that an investigation "confirmed that the Israel Defense Forces did not fire any ground, sea, or air shots that struck the hospital." He added that there was no structural damage to the buildings surrounding the Baptist hospital and no craters typical of airstrikes.
When asked to explain the scale of the explosion at the site, Hagari said it is consistent with a fire igniting unburned rocket fuel. He added, "Most of this damage can occur due to rocket fuel and not just an explosive warhead." Hagari also accused Hamas of inflating the death toll from the explosion, stating that it could not ascertain the cause of the blast as quickly as it announced. The death toll from the hospital explosion is much higher than any shelling that has occurred in Gaza during the ongoing violence and has led to protests in the West Bank and the region, including in Jordan and Turkey. Hagari mentioned that around 450 rockets launched from Gaza failed to reach their target and landed within the territory in recent days.
