Days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau implied Israel was behind an attack on al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City, the Canadian government has changed its tune.
Late Saturday night, Defence Minister Bill Blair posted on X (formerly Twitter) that Canada has a “high degree of confidence” that Israel was not behind the hospital explosion after an independent review by the Canadian military.
“In order to determine what happened, the Prime Minister asked me to task the @CanadianForces with preparing an independent analysis. Today I am releasing its findings,” Blair posted.
“Analysis conducted independently by the @CanadianForces Intelligence Command indicates with a high degree of confidence that Israel did not strike the hospital on October 17, 2023.”
The government now believes that the explosion was “caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza.”
The statement from the Trudeau government comes days after the United States said its own intel concluded that Israel was not responsible for the hospital blast, which Hamas claimed killed hundreds of people.
While in Israel, U.S. President Joe Biden told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the explosion was caused by the “other team, not you.”
When the explosion first occurred, Trudeau, while not mentioning Israel by name, implied that Israel was behind the attack.
“The news coming out of Gaza is horrific and absolutely unacceptable … International humanitarian and international law needs to be respected in this, and in all cases. There are rules around wars and it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital,” said Trudeau.
Other senior cabinet ministers also laid the blame on Israel, including Melanie Joly and Francois-Philippe Champagne.
“Bombing a hospital is an unthinkable act, and there is no doubt that doing so is absolutely illegal,” Joly posted on X.
Meanwhile, Champagne posted, “The attack on the Al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza is horrifying and against international humanitarian law. My thoughts are with the victims and their loved ones. Let’s be clear. There can be no justification to strike a hospital nor civilians.”
More than 4,300 people have been killed in Gaza, according to Hamas-run Gaza Health Minister. Meanwhile. more than 1,400 in Israel have been killed, most of them murdered in the surprise terrorist attack on Oct. 7.
The Israeli army is currently preparing for a ground assault of Gaza, in an effort to eliminate Hamas.
