Israel Hamas War: French military intelligence’s assessment indicates that the most likely cause of the massive explosion at Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City was a Palestinian rocket, which was carrying about five kilograms of explosives and had probably failed. A senior officer of the French Army gave this information. An intelligence official said on Friday that several rockets in the arsenal of the Palestinian extremist group Hamas contain approximately the same weight of explosives, including one Iranian-made rocket and another Palestinian-made rocket. The official said that none of his intelligence pointed to an Israeli attack in this incident.
What is confidential report?
The official said the analysis is based on classified information, satellite images, intelligence shared by other countries and open-source information. The explosion left a crater in the hospital complex, the size of which was estimated by French military intelligence to be approximately one meter long, 75 centimeters wide, and approximately 30 to 40 centimeters deep. The officer said that it appears that the crater was created by explosives weighing about five kilograms. The official said that the crater was formed slightly from south to north, which suggests that the explosive hit at an oblique angle from south to north.
Israel had denied involvement
Authorities in Hamas-ruled Gaza blamed Israeli airstrikes for the hospital explosion on Tuesday. Israel denied any involvement in the hospital blast and released video, audio and other evidence, saying the blast was caused by a rocket fired by Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian militant group. However, Islamic Jihad denied any involvement in the incident. There is also controversy over the number of people killed in the incident. Within an hour of the explosion, Gaza’s health ministry said 500 people were killed. After this, on Wednesday, without giving details of the dead, he revised it to 471. The Israeli army told reporters that the death toll had been exaggerated.
The death toll was in the hundreds
French military intelligence officer said that nothing can be said with confidence. But we do not think that a rocket of this size can kill 471 people. it’s not possible. A US intelligence report has estimated that around 100 to 300 Palestinians are likely to have been killed in the explosion at the hospital. In Gaza too, contradictory estimates were made about the dead. Al-Ahli Hospital officials, without giving any concrete numbers, only said that the death toll was in the hundreds.
Mohammed Abu Selmiya, director general of Shifa, Gaza’s largest hospital, said that based on the number of casualties coming into the hospital centre, he believed the death toll was closer to 250. At the same time, two eyewitnesses said that the number of deaths was not in hundreds, but in dozens. Gaza officials also said that the explosion left pieces of bodies scattered everywhere, complicating the task of ascertaining the death toll.