Media Falsely Accuses Israel of Hospital Explosion; Intelligence Points to Palestinian Terrorists
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Tuesday saw the devastating loss of 471 lives when an explosion struck a hospital in Gaza. It's shocking that multiple media sources got the story wrong and blamed Israel for the terrible attack. U.S. intelligence findings and government pronouncements have since contradicted this theory, however.
Speaking to the White House National Security Council, Adrienne Watson said, "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."
Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) used Instagram to call out the media for their inaccurate coverage, posting headlines that incorrectly blamed Israel for the tragedy. In a stern tone, Crenshaw said, "Israel did not do that. Hamas rockets misfired. Even Palestinian and Arab news outlets reported it.”
The false narrative was spread worldwide by headlines like "Hundreds Feared Dead or Injured in Israeli Air Strike on Hospital in Gaza, Palestinian Officials Say" from BBC News and "Breaking News: An Israeli airstrike hit a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, killing at least 200 Palestinians," according to The New York Times.
The Associated Press and Reuters were also among the media that hurried to conclusions, with the former saying that an explosion "caused by an Israeli airstrike" killed at least 500 people and the latter alleging that an Israeli airstrike "killed hundreds of Palestinians."
Israel's military took to social media to correct the record and call attention to the media's haste in publishing misleading stories without verifying their veracity. Israeli Defense Forces Spokesman Col. Jonathan Conricus said, "We now know that an Islamic Jihad rocket aimed at Israel misfired and hit the hospital in Gaza."
Speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Obama's vice president, Joe Biden, offered his condolences and acknowledged the chaotic nature of the situation. "I was deeply saddened and outraged by the explosion of the hospital in Gaza yesterday, and based on what I’ve seen, it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you," Biden told reporters.
Israeli Defense Force spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari issued a video message reiterating Israel's innocence. "I can confirm that an analysis of the IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al-Ahli al-Arabi Hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit," he said.
According to our little information, Islamic Jihad was responsible for the unsuccessful rocket attack that damaged a hospital in Gaza. I'll say it again: "This is the fault of Islamic Jihad, who bombed a hospital in Gaza, killing innocent people.
The world is still trying to accept the horrific hospital explosion. Still, attention has switched from assigning blame to finding those responsible, in this case, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. This should serve as a wake-up call to the media that, especially in times of crisis, they must put fact-checking ahead of sensationalism.
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