Delayed Fog of War Onset: Media Regress on Al-Ahli Hospital Blast

By: Tamar Sternthal April 15, 2025

More than a year and a half after multiple foreign intelligence sources ruled out an Israeli airstrike as responsible for  the October 2023 deadly blast in the Gaza Strip’s Al Ahli Hospital parking lot, and instead identified an errant Palestinian rocket as the likely culprit, some leading media outlets have inexcusably regressed into the murky fog of war mode.

In April 13 reporting, Reuters, for instance, misleadingly placed false and discredited charges of Israeli responsibility for the 2023 deadly Al Ahli hospital blast on near equal footing with the known cause of the explosion: a failed Islamic Jihad rocket attack (“Israeli missiles strike Gaza hospital, patients evacuated“). Relying on noncommittal he said/she said reporting, the article stated:

In October 2023, a deadly blast at a parking lot in the compound of Al-Ahli hospital was blamed by Hamas on an Israeli airstrike. Israel said a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group had caused the blast.

The militant group denied it was responsible. An investigation by Human Rights Watch concluded the explosion was most likely caused by a failed Palestinian rocket launch.

IDF aerial footage of the Al-Ahli Hospital grounds before and after the Oct. 17, 2023 blast

It’s not just Israel and HRW which ruled out Israeli responsibility for the blast and which instead pointed to an errant Palestinian rocket as the culprit.

U.S., British and French intelligence also concluded that Israel was not responsible for the blast.

Agence France Presse, for its part, yesterday strongly and egregiously implied that an Israeli airstrike was responsible for the October 2023 deadly blast at the Al Ahli Hospital parking lot (“WHO says child dies after Israel strike hits Gaza hospital,” April 14).  The article stated:
Hospitals, protected under international humanitarian law, have repeatedly been hit by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Al-Ahli was heavily damaged by an explosion in its car park on October 17, 2023 that caused multiple fatalities.
Given that the reference to the Oct. 17 Al-Ahli blast immediately follows reporting about Israeli airstrikes on hospitals, readers naturally — and wrongly — are likely to conclude that an Israeli airstrike hit the hospital grounds.
Yet a separate AFP article one day earlier added that Israel and the United States agreed that an errant Islamic Jihad rocket was the culprit (“Gaza hospital damaged in Israeli strike: civil defense”):
Militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad accused Israel, which denied responsibility and blamed a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad for that blast — a claim backed by the United States.
As previously mentioned, the U.S. and Israel are not alone in this assessment. As Jerusalem Post reported in October 2023 (“French military intelligence says Israeli strike not behind Gaza hospital blast“):
A blast at a Gaza hospital was not the result of an Israeli missile strike, but likely caused by a misfiring Palestinian rocket, the French military intelligence directorate (DRM) said on Friday. . . .
“There is nothing that allows us to say that it is an Israeli strike, but the most likely (scenario) is a Palestinian rocket that had a firing incident,” the DRM said.
The French findings would presumably be particularly newsworthy for a French news agency. British intelligence also concluded that Israel was not responsible for the blast.
While CAMERA has contacted both Reuters and AFP about their faulty reporting, neither wire service has yet clarified their stories.
In contrast, the Jerusalem Post, which had relied on Reuters reporting, has commendably amended its misleadingly murky Al-Ahli blast coverage. Thus, the Post‘s article, attributed to Reuters and Jerusalem Post staff, originally included Reuters’ he said/she said formulation, minus Islamic Jihad’s denial and the Human Rights Watch reference, stating:
In October 2023, an attack on the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital killed hundreds of people. Palestinian officials blamed an Israeli air strike for the blast; Israel said the blast was caused by a failed rocket launch by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, which denied blame.
In response to communication from CAMERA’s Israel office, the Jerusalem Post commendably amended the text to state:
In October 2023, the Al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital was hit by a failed rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group, which denied blame.

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