IDF contradicts Tlaib’s tweet accusing Israeli military of bombing a hospital
Fox News
Democrat Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s latest claim about Israel has been contradicted by the country’s military spokesperson.
Tlaib, a member of the progressive “Squad” of House Democrats, accused Israel of bombing a Christian hospital in the Gaza Strip and “killing 500 Palestinians,” including doctors, patients, and children.
“Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that,” Tlaib tweeted on Tuesday.
“[President Biden] this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire [and] help de-escalate,” Tlaib, a major critic of Israel, wrote. “Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many Palestinian Americans and Muslims Americans like me.”
“We will remember where you stood,” she added.
However, only hours later, a spokesperson from the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said in a tweet on Israel’s main Twitter account that the Christian hospital in Gaza was destroyed by a Hamas rocket amid their barrage, not an Israeli missile.
“From the analysis of the operational systems of the IDF, an enemy rocket barrage was carried out towards Israel, which passed through the vicinity of the hospital when it was hit,” the IDF spokesperson said.
“According to intelligence information, from several sources we have, the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is responsible for the failed shooting that hit the hospital,” the spokesperson continued, referencing Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Menjamin Netanyahu also commented on the hospital bombing Thursday.
“The barbarian terrorists in Gaza are the ones who attacked the hospital in Gaza, not the IDF. He who brutally murdered our children, also murders his children,” Netanyahu wrote in a post on X.
Tlaib’s office did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
The Democratic congresswoman’s tweet comes after a report that one of Tlaib’s top fundraiser has consistently projected anti-Israel viewpoints on social media platforms and recently said she believes they intend to ethnically cleanse Palestinians.
Fox News Digital found that the Michigan Democrat’s committee has paid $42,000 to Unbought Power for “fundraising consulting” this year, with the most recent payment of $7,000 coming in August, her new filings show. Unbought Power is a Florida-based consulting and advocacy firm owned and managed by Rasha Mubarak, a Palestinian-American Muslim activist.
Mubarak also acts as treasurer of Tlaib’s leadership PAC, Rooted in Community Leadership, which has also paid her company over the past two years.
Like Tlaib, Mubarak has regularly made comments critical of Israel. Weeks before Hamas’ terrorist attack on innocent civilians, Mubarak accused Israel of “ongoing ethnic cleansing.”
“The layers of grief that Palestinians experience can be difficult to contextualize – especially – when a large part is how normalizing the ongoing ethnic cleansing has grossly transcended,” Mubarak wrote on X in September. “Forfeiting red lines generates the false idea that this is the fate of the Palestinian [people].”
Following Hamas’ attack this month, Mubarak amplified several pro-Palestinian messages on her social media account, particularly of rallies across the United States.
One of the messages Mubarak reposted after the Oct. 7 attack called for halting money to Israel and ending the “siege in Gaza.”
“Congressmen, this is a start. It is beyond time that you use your position that we elected you into to take action,” says the reposted message from the Florida Palestine Network in response to Democrat Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost. “We demand that you condemn Israel’s violence against Palestinians, vote against sending [money] and arms to Israel, [and] call for an end to the siege in Gaza.”
Fox News Digital’s Joe Schoffstall contributed reporting.