What Could Have Triggered Gaza's Deadly Hospital Blast?

The fatal explosion at a Gaza hospital occurred as the armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinian militant group, Hamas, continues to rage with no sign of abating.

The Israeli and Palestinian authorities have blamed each other over the huge blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, which reportedly killed at least 500 people.

What Do Palestinians Say?

Palestinian Civil Defense spokesman Mahmoud Basal called the Gaza hospital explosion "Israel's deadliest airstrike” since 2008.

He was echoed by the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, who condemned the hospital attack as a "horrendous massacre” and a "crime against humanity." The Ministry urged the international community to interfere so as to make Israel "end its destructive war in the Gaza Strip and stop ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people."

A video of the Gaza hospital being rocked by the blast supports Palestine’s stance that the Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on the facility, Russian military expert Alexey Leonkov told Sputnik.

He suggested that “the US-made GBU [Guided Bomb Unit]-31 JDAM [Joint Direct Attack Munition] bomb was probably used” during the attack. According to him, this conclusion is based on the explosive power and the characteristic sound of a falling projectile, which can be heard on the video.

Leonkov was echoed by Konstantin Sivkov, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, Doctor of Military Sciences, who said in an interview with Sputnik that “it may well be” the GBU-31 JDAM bomb that could be mistakenly dropped from an Israeli warplane.

“There could be a failure in the control system, which determined the location incorrectly,” the expert added.

He spoke as a US news network cited a deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip as claiming that the IDF had already conducted an airstrike on the Gaza hospital a few days ago, and notified its head that the shelling was a warning. According to the news network, the IDF slammed the hospital for failing to evacuate people after the airstrike.

What Does Israel Claim?

The Israel Defense Forces have released a footage that they claim proves that the deadly explosion at the Gaza hospital was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group rather than an IDF ordnance. Islamic Jihad, along with the Palestinian militant group Hamas, are blacklisted by Israel as terrorist organizations.

The Israeli military insisted that if its ordnance was used, it would have left a crater and not a burning parking lot and shrapnel-pocked roofs, something that the footage purportedly shows.

"There is no direct outside hit. There is damage in the parking lot, maybe other things, but it is not from a direct [hit] from the outside,” IDF spokesman Daniel Hagari told reporters.

His claims were questioned by Sivkov, who stressed that craters typically occur when aerial bombs don’t hit buildings. “And when such a bomb hits a hospital, its building collapses and there can't be a crater there,” the expert underlined.

Continuing to doubt Israel’s version about Islamic Jihad’s misfired rocket, Sivkov underscored that such a missile should have been a sophisticated one, given the number of people that have been killed as a result of the Gaza hospital blast.

“The launcher for such a sizable missile should appropriate in terms of its size. It is impossible to hide such launcher in the Gaza Strip, which is controlled by the US and Israeli intelligence systems, including space ones,” the expert pointed out.

He said that “it is impossible to say whether it was a missile or an aerial bomb” because there is “no relevant data”. At the same time, Sivkov recalled that Israel does have state-of-the-art missiles, which is not the case with the Palestinian militant groups.

“I don't see a Hamas trace there. They cannot make the missile that could cause such damage,” the expert asserted, not ruling out that Israel could deliberately fire a missile on the Gaza hospital “resolve the problem of destroying Hamas militants who may be deployed there.”

Hagari, in turn, also argued that the IDF had intercepted what he described as "terrorists talking about rockets misfiring".

According to Hagari, one of the alleged Palestinian militants says, "I'm telling you, this is the first time that we see a missile like this falling and so that's why we are saying it belongs to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.”

After another person allegedly replies, "What? It's from us?," the first person man says, "They are saying shrapnel from the missile is local shrapnel and not like Israeli shrapnel." The authenticity of the audio has not been independently verified.

What is US' Position?

US President Joe Biden has meanwhile made it clear that he doesn’t believe in Israel being involved in the Tuesday tragedy.

“Based on what I have seen, 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,” POTUS told Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shortly after the US president arrived in Israel earlier on Wednesday.

Biden added that “he’s deeply saddened and outraged by the incident,” pledging that the US “will continue to support Israel.” He also failed to provide evidence for his allegations that the Gaza hospital blast might have been caused by Palestinian militants’ failed rocket launch.

Commenting on Biden’s remarks, Sivkov said that “there are only two teams – Hamas and Israel.” If one proceeds from the assumption that neither Hamas nor Israel are responsible, it will be safe to assume that the US could launch a strike on the Gaza hospital, because “there is no one else” who could be involved, according to the expert.

What Does Russia Say?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has called the Gaza hospital explosion a tragedy and a humanitarian catastrophe, while expressing expectation that it could be a signal of the necessity to end the conflict.

"As regards the hospital [attack], the tragedy that happened there is horrific. Hundreds of dead and injured are, of course, a catastrophe. [It happened] in one place, the place of humanitarian nature. That's why I expect this to be a signal that the conflict should be ended as soon as possible. Anyway, it is necessary to initiate some contacts and talks," Putin told reporters after talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing on Wednesday.

The Russian president added that he had an impression that the main regional players in the Middle East did not want the Palestine-Israel conflict to deepen and escalate into a broader standoff.

“It is necessary to seek the unity of the Palestinian people,” the Russian president said, adding, however, that it should be the matter of Palestinians themselves. According to the Russian head of state, Moscow has always been in favor of the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said on Wednesday that the UN Security Council is working on a common reaction to the deadly strike on the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza.

"We are currently coordinating the reaction of the international community in the UN Security Council to the events happening in Gaza … Today, there will be the fiercest debates and some decisions will be taken, probably belated," Vershinin added.

Referring to the Gaza hospital blast, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, for her part, told Sputnik that Moscow classifies this as “an act of a crime, [and] an act of dehumanization." She emphasized that Israel must provide satellite images to prove that its army is not involved in the Gaza hospital attack.

“Provide satellite images […] that would indicate the entire geography of the flights, with all the details that were available at that moment. I think this could be a serious and important step to justify yourselves,” Zakharova said, referring to Israeli authorities.

The escalation of the situation in the Middle East has gone far beyond the region, the Russian diplomat added, calling it "a global humanitarian disaster on a global scale."

When asked whether Israel would provide the above-mentioned images, Syvkov for his part remained downbeat about the move, recalling that Israel has never done such things before.