Al-Ahli hospital: please show your working, Mr Sunak

 There was a useful statement by the PM about  the Israel-Gaza war and a debate thereon in the Commons yesterday. While it all too clearly included statements that came from Israeli Defence Force briefings, it did recover some of the ground lost to world opinion in the UK government's early response to the war that we would support Israel without qualification. 

In his statement, he said:

I also want to say a word about the tone of the debate. When things are so delicate, we all have a responsibility to take additional care in the language we use, and to operate on the basis of facts alone. The reaction to the horrific explosion at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was a case in point. As I indicated last week, we have taken care to look at all the evidence currently available, and I can now share our assessment with the House. On the basis of the deep knowledge and analysis of our intelligence and weapons experts, the British Government judge that the explosion was likely caused by a missile, or part of one, that was launched from within Gaza towards Israel. The misreporting of that incident had a negative effect in the region, including on a vital US diplomatic effort, and on tensions here at home. We need to learn the lessons and ensure that in future there is no rush to judgment.

There was just a suggestion of the slur that it was the BBC correspondent's initial speculation about the source of the explosion which caused a breakdown in diplomacy. Much as the quality of BBC news reporting is respected around the globe, I hardly think that the King of Jordan and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia were hanging on to hear what Auntie believed before acting. They would have had their own reports of the explosion from several sources and drawn an immediate obvious, but almost certainly erroneous, conclusion. In any case, the BBC put the record straight and it was other news outlets that persisted in blaming the explosion on an air strike.

I would like to know the basis for the prime minister's confidence that the explosion was caused by a missile fired from somewhere in Gaza. If there was hard intelligence from US surveillance, why not say so? US use of satellites and drones is common knowledge, so there would hardly be any breach of confidentiality. Without that, and in the absence of physical evidence, we are still dealing with probabilities.