(Washington) The human toll from the strike on the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza on Tuesday is “probably at the bottom of a range between 100 and 300” dead, according to an American intelligence note which AFP was able to consult. Thursday extracts.
This summary sent to Congress affirms, as Joe Biden declared on Wednesday, that Israel “probably did not bomb the hospital in the Gaza Strip”.
“We are still working on the quantification of deaths and our estimate may change, but this human toll still represents a staggering loss of human life,” estimates the office at the origin of this note, the ODNI, which coordinates the whole American intelligence agencies.
The American services observed “only minor damage to the hospital structures”. “There is no observable damage to the main hospital building, nor any impact crater,” we can still read in extracts from this note.
Intelligence elements indicate that “Palestinian fighters in the Gaza Strip estimated that the explosion was probably caused by a rocket or a defective missile fired by Islamic Jihad”, according to extracts from the document consulted by AFP.
Hamas had accused Israel, which denied it, of bombing the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza on Tuesday. This strike killed at least 471 people displaced by the conflict who were sheltering within the hospital grounds, according to the Palestinian Territory’s Ministry of Health.
A senior European intelligence official, interviewed by AFP, estimated the number of deaths from this strike at “a few dozen”. And an Israeli army spokesperson also disputed the number put forward by Hamas: “Where are all the bodies? “, he said.
AFP photos and videos show dozens of bodies in sheets, black body bags or under blankets.
Israel claimed to have “evidence” that Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian movement, was responsible for the hospital strike.
An Israeli army spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, reiterated that it was “not an Israeli bomb, because there is no crater in the photos.”
According to Islamic Jihad – an ally of Hamas and classified like it as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel – it was a bomb dropped by an Israeli army plane which caused the tragedy.