Israel repeats claim that 'failed rocket' from Islamic Jihad struck Al-Ahli Baptist hospital

The Israeli military has reiterated its accusation that the Islamic Jihad Movement was responsible for Tuesday's explosion at Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in northern Gaza, resulting in hundreds of people killed and many more injured.

"We confirm that it was a failed rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad," Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Haggari told a news conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, referring to a group separate from Hamas, the Palestinian group Israel has vowed to eradicate, but one sharing similar goals.

Haggari claimed that "the damage analysis at the hospital, based on our aerial images, indicates that there was no direct hit on the hospital itself, and the only damage occurred outside the hospital in the car garage."

He asserted that the damage at the explosion site "is unlike the damage caused by any aerial ammunition, which would have had a different nature."

He added, using another name for the hospital: "After a comprehensive investigation and the study of all operational and intelligence systems, it is clear that the Israeli army did not attack the Al-Muaddani Hospital in the Gaza Strip."

On the social media platform X, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also claimed that "Palestinian factions are responsible for the hospital's shelling."

The Turkish government's anti-disinformation arm late Tuesday strongly rebuffed "false" Israeli claims about the airstrike, which killed some 500 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

"The claim that '(Palestinian group) Hamas, not Israel, carried out the attack' on the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza's al-Zaytoun neighbourhood is false," the Communications Directorate's Center for Combating Disinformation said on the social media platform X

"When the footage of the hospital bombing is examined, it becomes obvious that the ammunition that had the effect of destroying the area was not the type that Hamas had previously employed," the statement stressed

The center also cited a recent statement in which "the Israeli army demanded the immediate evacuation of hospitals, alleging that they were being used as shelters" for Hamas, bolstering the case that it was Israeli forces that carried out the deadly airstrike, and that they did so deliberately.