U.S. spy agencies believe that the blast at a Gaza hospital a week ago was caused by a Palestinian rocket that suffered engine failure and broke apart into two pieces, with the warhead striking the hospital’s parking lot, intelligence officials said Tuesday.
Speaking to reporters by phone, the intelligence officials said they had “high confidence” in their assessment that it was not Israel that fired the rocket, but they were less certain which Palestinian militants fired the projectile on the evening of Oct. 17.
“We assess with high confidence that Israel was not responsible for the explosion at the hospital and that Palestinian militants were responsible,” an intelligence official said. “We assess with low confidence that Palestine Islamic Jihad was responsible for launching the rocket that landed on the hospital.”
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The evidence pointing to PIJ was based on intercepted conversations between suspected “Hamas affiliated militants” who appeared to be speculating about who was behind the rocket launch, the officials said.
The explosion at al-Ahli Hospital has sparked anger across the Arab world, with protesters embracing the version of events put forward by Palestinian officials and Hamas — that Israel was responsible.
The U.S. assessment was based on intelligence, “physical activity,” open source video and images that all pointed to a rocket blast and not a bomb dropped from an aircraft or an artillery round used by Israeli forces, the officials said.
Open source video that was geolocated and taken from four locations showed a projectile launched inside Gaza traveling northeast, and 10 seconds later, there appears to be engine trouble based on the intensity of the rocket’s plume, the official said.
“Nobody is buying that narrative in this part of the world,” Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, told NBC News last week.
A senior intelligence official who took part in the briefing said American diplomats had asked for more information to share with governments in the region.
The original article contains 792 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 77%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!