19th Oct 2023

DELETE this

By C. Rice

Instead of mounting a rescue operation following Hamas abduction of hostages. Israel went straight to bombing Gaza. You would think that by now people wouldn't put too much blind faith in governments, politicians or the military industrial complex.

Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Gaza Strip in the wake of Hamas' attacks in southern Israel on October 7 that claimed more than 1,400 lives. Since Israel launched its counteroffensive, more than 2,800 Palestinians have died, including hundreds of children, according to Gazan health officials.

MSN: Israel has asked the United States for $10 billion in emergency military aid, The New York Times reports, citing three officials familiar with the request.

ABCNews: Biden stated that the United States is the most powerful nation in world history and has the capability and obligation to support both Israel and Ukraine.

On Capitol Hill, Senate leaders suggested Tuesday that such a sweeping aid package would find support among lawmakers.

"We'd like to get the supplemental package moved as quickly as possible because the needs are great in both Israel and Ukraine," said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

US lawmakers have discussed providing Israel with replacement ammunition for the Iron Dome missile defense system, precision-guided bombs, JDAM kits to turn standard bombs into precision munitions and 155-millimeter ammunition.

READ MORE: No More Blood for Oil

The aid proposal for Israel follows extensive discussions between the two countries, with Israel appearing to opt -- at least for now -- against a massive ground invasion of Gaza, even as international groups accuse Israel of worsening a humanitarian crisis by not allowing food or water into Gaza and cutting off electricity.

“On October 17, at around 19:00, the PIJ fired a missile salvo toward Israel,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry wrote in an official statement. “One of the missiles misfired, landing on the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, causing severe damage, killing at least several Palestinians and injuring many more. ”

Newsweek: Two official Israeli accounts on X, formerly Twitter, posted and later deleted a video that claimed to show a Tuesday explosion at Gaza City's Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital, adding to the confusion surrounding the incident that reportedly killed hundreds of people.

Official X accounts for the State of Israel and Michael Herzog, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., posted a video that claimed to show a rocket fired from Gaza caused the explosion at the hospital.

However, the video was later deleted from the accounts after Aric Toler, a journalist on the visual investigations team at The New York Times, disputed the accuracy of the footage due to time stamps on the video.

According to messages posted on X by Toler, the time stamps on the video shared by the Israeli accounts showed it was recorded at least 40 minutes after the explosion took place.

Though the posts about the hospital explosion on Herzog and the State of Israel's X posts still contained the original written messages, the video has since been deleted from both accounts.

An Israel Defense Forces spokesperson said in a statement that "an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed through the vicinity of the hospital when it was hit."

READ MORE: Air Force general predicts war with China in 2025

BusinessInsider: Netanyahu also posted on X that "an analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit."

"Intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad," an extremist group operating in Gaza, "is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza," he added.

A spokesperson for Islamic Jihad denied the claim, saying in a statement to The Times that "there were no operations by the Al-Quds Brigades in the area at all," referring to the group's military wing.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Israel's conflict with Hamas is a "struggle between the children of light and the children of darkness, between humanity and the law of the jungle."

The post went up on Monday afternoon and was quoting Netanyahu's remarks to the Knesset. It was deleted on Tuesday, when reports of a hospital explosion in Gaza began to emerge that the Hamas-run health ministry said killed hundreds of people.

Newsweek: In a news conference on Wednesday, IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari said that "any aerial munition," namely Israeli missiles, would not have caused the damage that was seen but greater damage, repeating earlier claims that Israeli believes this is the work of a rocket that failed to launch properly.

"At 6:15PM, a barrage of rockets was fired by Hamas at Israel," he said.
"At 6:59PM a barrage of around 10 rockets was fired by Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery.
"It was at the time, 6:59PM—when there were reports of an explosion at the hospital in Gaza City.
"According to our intelligence, Hamas checked the reports, understood it was an Islamic Jihad rocket that had misfired—and decided to launch a global media campaign to hide what really happened."

READ MORE: Egypt intelligence official says Israel ignored repeated warnings of ‘something big’

NewsAU: Hanaya Naftali took to X, formerly Twitter, and said: “BREAKING: Israeli Air Force struck a Hamas terrorist base inside a hospital in Gaza. A multiple number of terrorists are dead.”

Mr Naftali swiftly deleted the post, prompting pro-Palestinian social media users to point to it as proof Israel deliberately attacked the hospital.

He posted again claiming his original remarks were a mistake.

“Earlier today I shared a report that was published on @reuters about the bombing at the hospital in Gaza which falsely stated Israel struck the hospital. I mistakenly shared this information in a since deleted post in which I referenced Hamas’ routine use of hospitals to store weapons caches and conduct terrorist activity. I apologise for this error.

US President Joe Biden has landed in Israel to help escalate the war with Hamas into a broader Middle East conflict.

Joe Biden has told Israel’s prime minister that it “appears” the hospital bombing overnight was ”done by the other team”.

“Based on what I‘ve seen it appears as though it was done by the other team, not you. But there’s a lot of people out there who are not sure, so we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” he said.

While the blame game continues, the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders have both said Israeli air strikes have hit medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances, over the past week.

And the WHO claims the hospital “was one of 20 in the north of the Gaza Strip” that had been warned to evacuate by the Israeli Defence Force.

“The order for evacuation has been impossible to carry out given the current insecurity, critical condition of many patients, and lack of ambulances, staff, health system bed capacity, and alternative shelter for those displaced,” the WHO said.

In the live video ( https://streamable.com/vsuyp2 ), two distinct explosions can be observed: one occurring in mid-air and the other impacting the hospital. Initially, the Palestinian rocket veered left and was intercepted mid-air with a small, characteristic explosion typical of their less sophisticated rockets. In contrast, there is another explosion, likely resulting from antimissile or advanced technology that intercepted the rocket. It continued its trajectory, ultimately striking the hospital with a substantial explosion. The most plausible scenario seems to involve Israeli military technology, possibly an antimissile rocket that missed its intended target, inadvertently hitting the hospital.

In conclusion, the likely cause of the hospital explosion was an advanced interception technology and likely of Israeli origin, which failed to detonate itself mid-air and resulted in the hospital impact.

Hamas has misfired before, but they kill at most a dozen people, they are just not powerful enough to kill 500+.

US President Joe Biden said in a statement he is “ecstatic and deeply impressed” by the bloodshed and indicated America will conduct its own bombing raids on civilians as we've done before in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Afghanistan, Iraq, Nam, Korea, Japan and elsewhere.

READ MORE: Iran warns Israel it will ‘intervene’ if Gaza invaded

The World Health Organisation (WHO) demanded the immediate protection of civilians and health care in the Gaza Strip. “

WHO strongly condemns the attack on Al Ahli Arab Hospital,” WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.

Tamara al-Rifai, from the UN Relief and Works Agency, claimed there was “direct Israeli fire” on the hospital.

“An attack on densely populated refugee camps where people are sheltering in UN schools and premises is something that is utterly shocking. It is a very sad violation of international humanitarian law. I am lost for words right now,” she told Al Jazeera.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has expressed its “shocked and horrified” by the blast.

“Hospitals should be sanctuaries to preserve human life, not scenes of death and destruction,” it said in a statement.

“No patient should be killed in a hospital bed. No doctors should lose their lives while trying to save others. Hospitals must be protected under international humanitarian law.”

Making Them Sweat

NewsAU: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was forced from his plane as it was preparing to take off from an airport in Israel due to an air raid alarm.

Mr Scholz and his staff can be seen rushing off the plane and towards a vehicle.

For a moment, the German leader, who was visiting Tel Aviv for talks about the conflict, was forced to lie on the tarmac of Ben Gurion Airport.

READ MORE: In UN speech, Netanyahu threatens Iran with ‘credible nuclear threat’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appeared to threaten Tehran with nuclear weapons in his Sept. 22 address at the U.N. General Assembly.

“Iran must face a credible, nuclear threat. As long as I am prime minister of Israel, I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons,” Netanyahu said on Friday morning in New York City.

A senior adviser to the prime minister claims that the original text of the speech called for “a credible military threat” against Iran’s nuclear program.

“It was misread as a credible nuclear threat,” the adviser says. “The prime minister stands by the original text of the speech.”

Newsletter Signup