US Intel Assesses Palestinian Militant Group Caused Hospital Strike: REPORT

The U.S. has collected “high confidence” intelligence that a Palestine-based radical Islamic militant group was behind the explosion at a hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, according to multiple media reports.

Communications intercepts and other intelligence sources suggested that Israel was not responsible for the blast, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing U.S. defense officials, reinforcing Israel’s denial that it was behind the deadly explosion. U.S. officials said on the record they believe Israel is not responsible but did not attribute the strike to a particular group, media reports stated.

“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,” White House National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson told the WSJ.

The U.S. independently determined that a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket misfired and struck the hospital site, NBC News reported, citing two senior U.S. officials.

President Joe Biden stated that information provided to him from the Department of Defense (DOD) indicated to him that Israel was not responsible, according to the WSJ.

“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,” he later told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the WSJ reported.