(RepublicanJournal.org) – Israel and Hamas are at war in the Gaza Strip, and as usual, that’s bad news for civilians caught in the combat zone. It looks like Islamist terrorists have just managed to blow up one of their own hospitals, causing mass casualties. President Biden decided to mock the jihadists for their incompetence — but now some are questioning if that was an appropriate response to such a tragic event.
Hospital Hit by Missile
Around 7 p.m. local time on October 17, the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City was rocked by a massive explosion. An unidentified weapon exploded in the hospital’s parking area, and while it didn’t cause serious damage to the building itself, US sources say at least 100, and possibly as many as 300, people were killed in the busy parking lot.
Hamas, the terrorist group that slaughtered up to 1,500 Israelis on October 7, quickly blamed the Jewish state for the attack. However, Israel immediately challenged that claim, saying a misfiring rocket launched by another Islamist group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, was probably responsible. Israel has video of a failed rocket launch to back up its assertion, and Western intelligence services believe the country wasn’t responsible for the attack.
It seems very likely a Palestinian rocket was responsible for the Al-Ahli atrocity. Hamas and other terror groups regularly bombard Israel with crude missiles, some of them made from stolen pipes that are supposed to be supplying Gazans with water. They’re notoriously inaccurate weapons and have a very high failure rate; in 2021 Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Hamas of war crimes after more than 15% of a rocket barrage fell short, killing around 90 Palestinians. HRW pointed out that the rockets “lack guidance systems and are prone to misfire… Launching such rockets to attack civilian areas is a war crime.”
Biden Misjudges the Mood
So there’s no evidence that Israel was behind the hospital attack and plenty of reasons to believe Palestinian terrorists fired the deadly missile. Nevertheless, the blast was a massive tragedy, killing scores of people — most of whom were likely to have been innocent civilians. President Biden didn’t seem to realize that, though.
On October 18, as some of his own party continued to blame Israel despite the evidence, he said the terrorists “gotta learn to shoot straight.” Conservative news outlet Breitbart felt that was an inappropriately light-hearted response to this disaster and also pointed out that if the terrorists did “shoot straight” that would just mean their rockets landing on Israeli civilians instead of Palestinian ones.
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