‘Squad’ silent after anti-Israel group points finger at Palestinians in Gaza hospital explosion

A human rights organization with a long history of anti-Israel statements and behavior has belatedly acknowledged that “the evidence points to [a] A “rocket misfire” by Palestinian terrorists caused a hospital to explode in Gaza last month, prompting silence from far-left members of Congress who blamed the Jewish state for the explosion.

Human Rights Watch concluded Sunday that the October 17 explosion at al-Ahli Arab Hospital “was the result of an apparent rocket-propelled munition, such as those commonly used by Palestinian armed groups, impacting the hospital grounds.” .

“While misfires are common, more investigation is needed to determine who launched the apparent rocket and whether the laws of war were violated,” the organization said in a report released Sunday.

“Squad” representatives Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) immediately blamed the Israel Defense Forces for the hospital explosion, citing death counts shared by the Gaza Health Ministry controlled by Hamas and demanding a cessation. -fire.

A human rights organization with a long history of anti-Israel statements and behavior has belatedly acknowledged that “the evidence points to [a] Failed rocket” that caused a hospital explosion in Gaza. Telegram The report drew silence from far-left members of Congress who blamed the Jewish state for the explosion, such as Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.). AFP via Getty Images

Israeli and American intelligence services later determined that a rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group linked to Hamas, had misfired and hit the Gaza City hospital, killing between 100 and 300 people.

President Biden was reportedly infuriated by the New York Times’ coverage of the incident, which blamed Israel for the explosion and uncritically reported an estimated death toll of 500.

Omar and Tlaib I have never gone down your posts on X blaming Israel for the explosion or repeating the inflated death count, choosing instead to issue statements that cast doubt on US and Israeli assessments.

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President Biden was infuriated by the New York Times’ coverage of the incident, which blamed Israel for the explosion and uncritically reported a death toll of 500. REUTERS

“It’s a reminder that information is often unreliable and discussed in the fog of war (especially on Twitter, where misinformation abounds),” Omar saying the day after the explosion.

“It is essential that we conduct a fully independent investigation to conclusively determine who is responsible for this war crime.”

Tlaib in a later statement also called for an independent investigation.

“Squad” Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) tried unsuccessfully to defend Tlaib against a House censure for anti-Israel comments. AFP via Getty Images

“Both the Israeli and US governments have a long and documented history of misleading the public about wars and war crimes, such as the Israeli military assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh last year and the false claims of weapons of mass destruction that They took our country to the Iraq war. —And they cannot absolve themselves of responsibility without an independent international investigation,” she said.

Fellow “Squad” representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.), also used inflated death toll to call for a ceasefire.

None of the three responded Monday to The Post’s requests for comment on the Human Rights Watch report.

Fellow “Squad” representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.) also used the inflated death toll to call for a ceasefire. AFP via Getty Images

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), who tried unsuccessfully to defend Tlaib against a House censure after she called for the destruction of Israel, they did too. I do not respond to requests for comment.

Human Rights Watch has called on the United Nations Commission of Inquiry to also investigate the cause of the hospital explosion, saying it was “unable to corroborate” the death count.

“The Gaza Health Ministry reported that 471 people were killed and 342 injured,” the report states. “Human Rights Watch was unable to corroborate the count, which is significantly higher than other estimates, shows an unusually high proportion of dead and injured, and appears disproportionate to the damage visible at the site.”

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The human rights group had already shared as factual the death count reported by the Gaza Ministry of Health just hours after the explosion. Anadolu via Getty Images

But the human rights group had already shared as real the death count reported by the Gaza Health Ministry just hours after the explosion.

“An attack on Al Ahli hospital, also known as Al Moamadani, in central Gaza, has killed at least 500 people,” the group said in a post on X that remains active.

A Human Rights Watch spokeswoman told The Post that “attribution to the Palestinian Ministry of Health” for the death count was cut, apparently to fit the tweet’s character limits, but it was included in a separate statement published on the same day.

“We shouldn’t have left it out of the initial tweet, but it wasn’t something we did deliberately,” the spokeswoman said.

The group also found that “Gaza authorities appear to be in possession of debris that would help conclusively determine the munition that exploded at the Al Ahli hospital,” after initially lying that the missile had “vaporized” and then having promised more than a month ago in a comment to the Washington Post that the remains “will soon be shown to the world.”

Senior Hamas official Bassam Naim, in response to questions posed by Human Rights Watch, stated that Israel was responsible. Satellite image ©2023 Maxar Tech/AFP via Getty Images

“[T]The sound preceding the explosion, the fireball that accompanied it, the size of the resulting crater, the type of contiguous splash, and the type and pattern of fragmentation visible around the crater are all consistent with a rocket impact,” Rights Humans. Watch said in his report.

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Using photographs, videos, satellite images, independent analysis, and interviews with five witnesses, the group concluded: “The evidence available to Human Rights Watch raises the possibility of a large air-dropped bomb, such as those Israel has widely used in Gaza, is highly unlikely. .”

Senior Hamas official Bassam Naim, in response to questions posed by Human Rights Watch, stated that Israel was responsible and that “no Palestinian resistance faction – that we know of – has among its weapons a projectile or rocket of destructive power capable of of killing a large number of people.” from the people.”

Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch appointed a new director who began her tenure by denouncing the Israeli government for committing “a domestic human rights attack against its own people.”

The director, Tirana Hassan, also stated that the Israeli government “has not provided evidence to justify the mass transfer of patients and doctors and the closure of an already overwhelmed hospital” in Gaza during the war.

The claim comes despite many reports, including testimonies from prisoners, describing how Hamas embeds itself among civilians in hospitals.

Fred Baumann, a political science professor at Kenyon College, told The Post that Human Rights Watch had shown its “usual anti-Israel outrage” and “was among those who believed Hamas’ lies about” the incident.

“[It] “It blames Israel for the attacks on medical facilities, but fails to mention that it is now widely demonstrated that Hamas deliberately hides its fighters and weapons beneath them, a serious violation of the laws of war,” he said.

“In short, the report strikes me as an ugly mix of shame at having been exposed for repeating Hamas’s lies and continued malice against Israel.”

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Source: vtt.edu.vn

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