'No crater at Gaza hospital site proves not Israel'

October 18, 2023 14:20

Hours after a deadly blast at a civilian hospital in the besieged Gaza Strip killed hundreds of people, Israel on Wednesday claimed that a lack of a crater at the blast site proves that it was not an air strike by its forces as claimed by Hamas-run Health Ministry.

A massive explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital late on Tuesday night killed at least 500 people, Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Apart from the large number of in-house patients at the hospital, there were hundreds of Palestinians who had taken refuge at the hospital over the last two to three days after Israel had asked civilians from the northern Gaza Strip areas to move south.

The Palestinians taking refuge at the hospital had hoped that they would be spared Israel's bombardment. Asserting that Israel wasn't behind the strike, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) published drone footage that it said proves that the deadly blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital's parking lot was not caused by its ordnance, which it said, would have left a crater and not a burning parking lot and shrapnel-pocked roofs.

The drone video shows the hospital's parking lot where a large fire was caused in the area as a result of the blast, but there is no crater. Israeli strikes generally leave large holes in the ground, the IDF said.

The drone footage also points to shrapnel that landed on the roof of the nearby buildings, which remain largely intact. IDF also released a soundtrack, which it claimed, was a communication between terrorists talking about rocket misfiring and said, the terrorists realised that the rocket had misfired and made specific reference to the Al-Ahli Madani Hospital. Israel, instead, blamed it on what it called a failed rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror group. -- PTI

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