Front Bench: Who struck the hospital in Gaza? | Power Play with Vassy Kapelos

That is prime minister Justin trau commenting earlier this afternoon right after we received word of breaking news out of Gaza an airor strike had hit a hospital in Gaza City the Gaza Health Ministry blames the Israelis for that strike and told the Associated Press at least 500 people were killed because of

It in a statement sent to CTV News minutes ago the Israeli Defense Force insisted Israel did not launch the air strike the statement says and I quote an analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza passing in

Close proximity to the Al Ali Ali pardon me hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit the statement goes on to say intelligence from multiple sources we have in our hands indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch which hit the hospital in

Gaza now just a short time after that statement was released by the IDF a spokesperson for the group they’re accusing of being behind the strike the Palestinian Islamic Jihad H denied to the Associated Press those allegations from the IDF and said that the group is not responsible for the hospital strike

So let’s parse apart uh what happened and the reaction to it with the front bench this evening Elliot Hughes is with us tonight he’s a political commentator and Senior associate with Suma strategies also a former senior adviser to Liberal finance and defense ministers former conservative Deputy leader Lisa

Raid is also with us she’s the vice chair and managing director of global investment banking at CIBC CTV News political analyst and former NDP leader Tom mare is here as is the the Toronto Stars Queens Park bureau chief Rob benzy hi everybody it’s good to see you another uh another significant day and

And pretty heavy stuff Rob I’ll start with you uh obviously this is all unfolding on social media and on TV it’s really important I think to be able to attribute everything the Prime Minister came out fairly quickly to talk about the impact of this what do you make of

Kind of the way in which the government is responding at the moment well I mean the I mean in war the first casualty is truth and I think the problem with something like this and it’s a devastating tragedy 500 people are dead it’ll be of small Comfort to their

Families who whether it was an Israeli air strike or whether it was a uh Islamic Jihad uh misfired rocket uh either way these are families in mourning and this is a hospital in an area that is desperately in need of Health Care and and and medical triage

And so on so this is a tragedy humanitarian tragedy I think that the Prime Minister was reacting as any of us would to the assumption that it was uh that with that it was from Israel and it seems from what the Israeli government is saying and the video that they’ve put

On on on uh social media that shows that the Rockets seem to have come from inside Gaza so again this is we’re going to be be be seeing a lot of this unfortunately over the next few days we’re just not going to know what really happened until the

Aftermath Tom I think it sort of reminds me of the discussion we had exactly a week ago right which was very soon after the Hamas attack the resolve of of multiple parties and multiple politicians was was quite clear at the time but I think it was uh Lisa and you

At the time who both said as this progresses as uh the war gets worse as the humanitarian crisis for example in Gaza uh worsens that resolve will be tested how do you think that has evolved over the last week well today’s events prove that it’s very fragile the the support that the

World was expressing for Israel and I did find that for such an experien and he really is an experienced politician and a very good communicator I find that it was imprudent of Mr trudo to use those terms um until he could have easily said look this is a a horrible

Situation go very much in the same line as uh M Robert Benes two seconds ago just saying look the families don’t care this is a horrible result this is an example of what happens in war but instead if you parse those sentences it really seems quite clear that he had an

Idea in his own head anyway uh as to who was responsible and I think that that’s that’s a huge problem because you can’t make that assumption Israel’s pushing back seems to have some information it’s mutual accusations at this point and maybe we’ll never know but what we do

Know is that Canada has in the past you know Stood Beside Israel on these important issues since the horrible terrorist attacks unprecedented terrorist attacks by Hamas against that targeted Israeli civilians then you know Canada and most of our allies have been for square on this so right now this is

Going to be tested we’re going to see Joe Joe Biden arrive in Israel tomorrow morning we’re going to find out whether this has any effect on his his movements or his statements I think that that’s an important part of this whole exercise but I think that right now the Israelis

Are simply chomping at the bit they want to finish the exercise with regard to Hamas they know what an existential threat is and they faced an existential threat make no mistake Iran couldn’t be clearer Hamas couldn’t be clearer their goal is the destruction of the state of

Israel and as we learned last week they they make no bones about the fact that their goal is to kill Jews and Israel knows what to do in in the face of that but that’s not a good place to be in for the world right now because we know

Where this starts but we have no way of knowing where it’s going to end so I think there a lot of people across Canada and around the world are going to continue praying for peace right now because it is probably the best hope that we have uh Lisa Tom mentioned the visit

From US President Joe Biden it looks like even part of that visit has already been impacted the uh he was supposed to meet with abas ahead of the meeting uh of his time in Israel and it sounds like the reports right now are that that meeting has been canceled in light of uh

In light of the the hospital strike how significant do you think tomorrow’s meetings the US visit the US role really is at this point well it’s really tough I mean world leaders don’t go to places unless and until they know exactly who they’re going to meet with and how many

Meetings there will be and it’s all choreographed and now we see one of them falling off The Ledger I’m sure that the secretary of state blinkin is doing double time trying to figure out how to make sure to get some of these meetings back on on track I’m concerned about two

Things I’m concerned about how quickly the Prime Minister assumed who was to blame on this one because I think that’s going to hurt us as a country and I’m also very very concerned with the call for not just grief over what has happened in that hospital which is absolutely tragic

But to express it in a way that may actually be dangerous for other people around the world and and I worry like I have to tell you ashy I’m really concerned about where this is all going in the world like I’m not exaggerating when I say I I feel like we’re on the

Cusp of something that we just can’t put back in the bottle and it’s an incident like this that can cause things to happen you just don’t have any control over so I don’t know if I have anything else to add to be honest no I I think you probably encapsulate

What everybody watching and what everybody on this panel is is feeling uh to that extent very much so uh Elliot what are your thoughts on I’ll sort of circle back to where we started uh the I mean so much of this unfolding live on our watch there’s lots on social media I

Don’t know why everyone is going to social media so quickly to be honest but there is lots unfolding and the pressure is on people to respond more immediately than they might have had to when there isn’t 24-hour news or there isn’t 24-hour social media what what what is your take on

That yeah I mean I think unfortunately this the fog of War has has struck quite early on in this conflict and I suspect we’re going to have a lot more of it over the coming days and weeks unfortunately I I don’t think that this is going to be the only event where both

Sides are pointing at each other and blaming each other um you know this tends to happen in a war and unfortunately this situation is so um emot and so fragile uh and so dangerous um that I suspect it’s going to keep happening um Lisa and Tom made the point

About Joe Biden’s visit I think this certainly makes uh you know any of the hopes that there were that existed you know maybe in the leadup to the president’s trip uh of of you know a path towards peace or opening up the border to Egypt for some folks from the

Gaza Strip to be able to leave and depart a humanitarian Corridor all of those things get get thrown up in the air I think even further now because of this awful uh attack on on whether it’s you know by accident or an attack on this uh on this hospital and so uh

Unfortunately I suspect that what we’ll see over the coming weeks is we we probably need to get used to some this some of this stuff uh pretty quickly because this war is probably going to be quite violent quite brutal uh and and quite uh tough uh and I think it’s going

To to force us all to really sort of think and and try to react and and make sense of it but it’s a it’s a very jarring um early on strike in this in this bloody battle

The Front Bench panel weighs in on ‘fragile’ support for Israel as blame for a devastating hospital bombing is still unclear.

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