U.S. intelligence officials say that they have multiple pieces of evidence that indicate that Palestinian terrorists were responsible for an explosion in the parking lot of a hospital inside Gaza on Tuesday that ignited international fury after false claims went viral on social media and in news coverage that claimed that Israel bombed the hospital.
The New York Times reported that sources inside the intelligence community have “satellite and other infrared data showing a launch of a rocket or missile from Palestinian fighter positions within Gaza.” These same systems were the first to detect that Russia shot down a Malaysian passenger plane over Ukraine in 2014, the report said.
“While we continue to collect information, our current assessment, based on analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information, is that Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council.
The report said that U.S. officials were confident of their assessment after looking at their own intelligence, open source intelligence — videos posted of the incident online — and communications of Hamas terrorists that Israel intercepted that showed Hamas acknowledging privately that the explosion was caused by a rocket fired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) released evidence on Wednesday that showed drone footage from where the rocket exploded in the hospital’s parking lot. The IDF showed that there was no impact crater anywhere in the parking lot, which would not be the case if a bomb caused the explosion. The video showed a side-by-side comparison of the impact craters that are left behind after Israel conducts an airstrike.
The IDF then released communications it intercepted from Hamas terrorists discussing the explosion.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
In the audio, the Hamas terrorists state that terrorists from the Palestinian Islamic Jihad were responsible for launching the rocket that hit near the hospital.
“I’m telling you this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling and so that’s why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad,” a Hamas member states to another Hamas terrorist. “They are saying it belongs to Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”
The Hamas member says that the shrapnel that was found at the blast site from the rocket was not the kind of shrapnel left behind by Israeli munitions. They said the Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired the rocket from a cemetery located behind the hospital.
The IDF redacted the names of Hamas members speaking to each other.