Israel army says rocket misfired by Gaza militants hit hospital

"The hospital was hit as a result of a failed rocket launched by the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization," it said in a statement.

Arab governments immediately blamed Israel, 11 days into a war between Israel and Gaza-based Hamas militants who attacked southern Israel on October 7.

According to the Israeli army, "intelligence from multiple sources we have... indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in Gaza."

Spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press briefing that at the time of the strike, the Israeli army was not conducting air operations near the hospital and the rockets that hit the building did not match theirs.

He added that the army would also provide conversations in Arabic that indicate the strike was done by Islamic Jihad.

The Gaza-based militant group has claimed to be fighting Israel alongside Hamas, which rules the coastal Palestinian enclave.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charged in a statement that "it was barbaric terrorists in Gaza that attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF (Israel Defense Forces)."

Neither Islamic Jihad nor Israel has claimed the Palestinian group was involved in the October 7 attack, under cover of rocket fire, against Israeli communities near the Gaza border.

Violence since then has killed more than 1,400 people in Israel, most of them civilians, and about 3,000 in Gaza, according to official figures.

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