Israel has ‘evidence’ hospital missile fired by Islamic Jihad

It’s believed the rocket, funded by Iran, was launched by the Palestinian miliant group from a cemetery behind Al-Alhi Arab.

Blast site?: The carpark at the Al-Ahli Arab hospital on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

“The evidence – which we are sharing with you all – confirms that the explosion at the hospital in Gaza was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari said.

“There was no IDF (Israel Defence Forces) fire by land, sea or air that hit the hospital,” Rear Admiral Hagari said.

“Our radar system tracked missiles fired by terrorists in Gaza at the time of the explosion and the trajectory analysis of the rockets shows the rockets were fired in close proximity to the hospital.”

He said after an intensive investigation, it was believed the rocket, funded by Iran, had been launched by Islamic Jihad from a cemetery just behind the hospital. But the rocket failed and because of the huge payload of fuel, it caused a massive explosion.

Admiral Hagari released a voice intercept of two Hamas fighters discovering that the rocket had fallen upon the Al-Alhi Arab Hospital in Gaza City.

One Hamas fighter is recorded saying to a second one: “They are saying the shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel ... But God bless, it couldn’t have found another place to explode?”

Admiral Hagari said the explosion was in the car park of the hospital, and not inside the hospital and that Hamas knew this but wanted to exploit the situation in a “global media campaign” to blame Israel.

“This is a hard information war”, adding that the Israeli intelligence indicated that the casualties from the failed rocket had been also “inflated”.

Admiral Hagari said the Five Eyes intelligence community, comprising the US, Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, would have access to all of the intelligence files relating to the failed rocket. As well as the voice intercepts the Israelis have satelite imagery, analysis of the bomb crater and other assets not yet revealed.

He said that liberal democratic countries would realise the credibility of the Israel information because it is linked with intelligence from the the Five Eyes intelligence community.

“It’s credible, with Five Eyes etc, very credible information, any country can rely on (it),’’ he said.