A post shared on X claims the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) Arabic Facebook page said that Israel bombed a Gaza hospital.

Despite the Israeli military’s denial that it committed the war crime at the Arab Baptist Hospital in #Gaza, this Israeli page has posted: “Due to the shortage of medical equipment and personnel, we have chosen to intervene by conducting an airstrike on the hospital to minimize… pic.twitter.com/N13ycLZaiZ

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) October 17, 2023

Verdict: False

The actual IDF Arabic Facebook page is verified. A spokesperson from the IDF told Check Your Fact the account is “fraudulent.”

Fact Check:

The Gaza Health Ministry, ran by Hamas, claimed that an Israeli strike killed hundreds of Palestinians at the al-Ahli hospital, according to the Associated Press. Israel denied the claim and said the reason for the explosion was a misfired Palestinian rocket, the outlet reported.

Social media posts are claiming that the IDF’s Arabic language page posted that the Israeli military struck the hospital with an airstrike. The post allegedly reads, “Due to the shortage of medical equipment and personnel, we have chosen to intervene by conducting an airstrike on the hospital to minimize suffering.”

There is, however, no evidence that the Facebook page belongs to the IDF. There are no credible outlets reporting on this alleged IDF Arabic page. Furthermore, the page in the post is not verified. The IDF’s official Hebrew and English language Facebook pages both have a verification checkmark, meaning that Facebook has “confirmed that it represents who it says it does.” (RELATED: Does This Image Show Israeli Airstrikes In Syria?)

The official IDF Arabic spokesman, Lt Col. Avichay Adraee, is verified on Facebook, as well. A search of Adraee’s page does not show any statement matching the one in the original image. The IDF announced in 2011 that it was creating an Arabic language Facebook page, which was spearheaded by Adraee.

A Facebook search also did not yield any results for the alleged Facebook page. An IDF spokesperson told Check Your Fact that “this Arabic Instagram page does not belong to our spokesperson unit; it is fraudulent.” (Note, the page is formatted as a Facebook page, not an Instagram account.)

“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 Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit. 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,” the spokesperson said.

Check Your Fact has not verified this claim, though Israel has shared intelligence with the U.S., according to CNN national security reporter Zachary Cohen.