Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday questioned American and Israeli military officials’ verdict that the explosion near the Ahli Arab Hospital on Tuesday night was caused by a Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) rocket rather than an Israeli air strike, as the Hamas terrorist organization claimed.
Trudeau said Canadian intelligence has not reached its own conclusions yet.
“We are working closely with allies to determine exactly what happened,” Trudeau said at a press conference in Ottawa on Thursday.
“We saw some preliminary evidence, but we’ll keep working with our allies as quickly as possible before reaching any firm and final conclusion,” he said, insisting his government is “taking the necessary time to look carefully at everything.”
Trudeau added that many Canadian communities are “personally affected in an intensive way by what happened over there.”
Trudeau’s foreign minister, Melanie Joly, supported his remarks and said Canada and its allies were “working to determine exactly what happened.”
“What happened in Gaza is absolutely devastating. Palestinian civilians, Israeli civilians are equal and must be protected,” she declared.
Joly became visibly agitated when reporters pressed her on why Canada was unwilling to accept the consensus from U.S. and Israeli intelligence, which was awkwardly endorsed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday when he said the hospital blast “appears as though it was done by the other team.”
“I said it in the House, I said it in French, and I’ll say it again. What happened in Gaza is completely devastating. There’s been numerous conversations. Canada is in contact with all of its allies on this issue. We’ll make sure to know what exactly happened,” Joly snapped.
Trudeau is under pressure from Canadian opposition to take a more clear position, especially since he originally seemed to accept Hamas propaganda on the explosion at face value, immediately condemning Israel for its “absolutely unacceptable” alleged decision to target a hospital.
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As the false Hamas story unraveled over the ensuing hours — not least because the Ahli Arab Hospital was revealed to be only lightly damaged by the explosion, not destroyed with horrendous casualties as the Palestinian terrorist group claimed — Trudeau’s government lapsed into something of an embarrassed silence.
Trudeau modified his position on Tuesday night with a tweet that said he was “horrified” by whatever deaths actually did occur, saying, “We must determine what happened.” A few hours after that, Biden announced the U.S. Defense Department had determined Israel did not cause the explosion.
The Israeli ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, gently prodded Trudeau to offer a “similar response” to the “abundance of evidence,” as offered by Biden. As of Friday, the Canadian prime minister remained stubbornly unwilling to do so.
Conservative member of Parliament Michael Chong, who serves as his party’s critic on foreign affairs, on Friday asked why Trudeau has not taken steps to “correct and clarify the record.”
Three prominent Canadian Jewish groups — B’nai Brith Canada, the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, and the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center — issued a joint statement on Thursday asking the Trudeau administration to “retract and clarify its earlier comments that can only be interpreted as giving credence to the false narrative of the Hamas terror group.”
“So where’s the holdup?” asked an exasperated Michael Mostyn, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada.
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Trudeau was hit by heavy pressure from the other direction after the hospital blast was first reported.
The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM) published an open letter to Trudeau, Joly, and other top Canadian officials on Tuesday, endorsed by some 300 organizations, which repeated the false Hamas propaganda and demanded Trudeau condemn Israel for a “war crime” that it did not commit.
The letter stated:
Today, Israeli forces bombed the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza City, At least 500 people have died as a result, including children. Other estimates put the casualty number even higher. This is a war crime. It must be condemned. We, the undersigned, are asking you and the leaders in this country to publicly and clearly condemn it.
As of Friday, the NCCM has not retracted this letter or acknowledged that the hospital explosion was not caused by an Israeli airstrike. The open letter demanding Canada condemn Israel for a “war crime” is still posted in its original form on the NCCM website.
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Writing for the Toronto Sun on Thursday, Brian Lilley was appalled that Trudeau is still dithering while even Western politicians viciously opposed to Israel are backing away from the Hamas story, and major international media organizations are apologizing for uncritically running terrorist propaganda as “news.”
“Our allies have determined what happened, he just doesn’t want to accept it,” Lilley said of Trudeau. “After doing the right thing early on, he shouldn’t look for the first off-ramp he can find when he starts to face pressure from the other side.”