by Sam Halpern
"We are at war. And even if a thousand people are killed by friendly fire, that is the price of war," PIJ's Akram al-Ajouri reportedly said.
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Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza knowingly launched defective rockets throughout the course of the Israel-Hamas War, killing 'a thousand' Gazans, KAN Reshet Bet reported on Tuesday, citing a document recovered from the Gaza Strip.
The Foreign Ministry later confirmed the authenticity of the document, sharing it on X/Twitter.
According to the report, the document, which contains a summary of a Beirut meeting between a Hamas official and Akram al-Ajouri, the head of PIJ’s al-Quds Brigades, was investigated by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. The al-Quds Brigades is Palestinian Islamic Jihad's military wing.
According to the document, which reveals that Hamas leaders were upset that so many PIJ rockets were falling short inside of Gaza and killing Palestinians, reveals that Hamas viewed the problem as an issue damaging public perception within Gaza.
Ajouri: If a thousand are killed, that is the price of war
According to the document's transcript, Ajouri replied to the concern during the Beirut meeting, saying, "We are at war. And even if a thousand people are killed by friendly fire, that is the price of war."
KAN noted that the senior Hamas official mentioned in the document, codenamed “Ahmed,” told Ajouri, "Your rockets are falling on people's homes in broad daylight, and this has happened repeatedly."
Ahmed went on, saying that Hamas was not involved in the campaign to harm PIJ's public relations, and that, rather, the campaign was coming from the public within Gaza.
Hamas official: If we are aware of the rocket malfunctions, the 'thousand deaths' are on our conscience
"Gaza has two million Facebook accounts, and everyone is acting like an activist," the transcript quotes Ahmed as saying. "As for the fact that a thousand people are killed by friendly fire, that would be understandable if it were against our will, without our prior knowledge that a fixable malfunction could lead to the deaths of a thousand. But if we had knowledge, then those thousand deaths are on the conscience of whoever kills them."
The document further revealed that both officials had been aware of the rocket malfunction issue since the 2014 Israel-Hamas conflict. Additionally, during the conversation, Ajouri admitted that the rockets were based on blueprints the organization received from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.
PIJ’s rockets came under the international spotlight weeks after the start of the war in October 2023, when one of the organization’s rockets hit the al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza.
International media and terrorists in Gaza quickly blamed Israel for the incident, but it soon came to light that it was a PIJ rocket that struck the facility.
Days after the al-Ahli hospital incident, then-IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said that, over the past day, over 550 rockets, one-fifth of those fired by Hamas and PIJ from Gaza in the 24-hour period, had landed within the strip.
Months later, in December 2023, the IDF stated a similar phenomenon was occurring in Lebanon.
The military said at the time that of the hundreds of rockets and missiles fired by Hezbollah at northern Israel, one in five fell short within Lebanese territory.
Yonah Jeremy Bob and Maayan Jaffe-Hoffman contributed to this report.
Sam Halpern
Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-884689
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