A memo from before the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, reportedly captured by the IDF in Gaza, quotes a top Palestinian Islamic Jihad military official dismissing Hamas’s concerns that rockets launched by the terror group during a previous round of fighting in Gaza were falling short of Israel and landing inside the Strip, with deadly consequences for Gazans.
“We are in a war; even if a thousand are killed by friendly fire, that’s the price of war,” Akram al-Ajouri is quoted as saying in the document, parts of which were first published by the Kan public broadcaster this morning.
Days after the Hamas onslaught sparked the current war, a misfired Gazan rocket that Israel said was launched by Islamic Jihad landed in Gaza City’s al-Ahli Baptists’ Hospital, killing hundreds, with Hamas and many major news outlets initially placing the blame on Israel.
In a post on X, Israel’s Foreign Ministry shares the quote from Ajouri as published by Kan, and writes: “Palestinian Islamic Jihad leaders acknowledged their rockets were falling inside Gaza and killing civilians. They chose to keep firing.”
“These are their values. A terrorist organization that kills its own civilians,” says the ministry.
According to Kan, the memo is a report by a senior Hamas official, code-named Ahmed, on a meeting he had with Ajouri in Beirut. The Times of Israel could not independently verify the document.
The first page of the text published by Kan indicates the meeting took place on August 28, 2022, though it’s unclear if this heading applies also to the section of the text that contains the quote from Ajouri.
The war Ajouri refers to appears to be Israel’s 2022 Operation Breaking Dawn, which was fought against Islamic Jihad for 66 hours from August 5 to August 7, when Hamas reportedly pressured its ally to reach a ceasefire. The first page of the memo alludes to Israel’s then-recent assassination of Tayseer al-Jabari, a top commander in Islamic Jihad’s armed wing, the al-Quds Brigades, who was killed at the start of the operation.
The first page published by Kan also refers to Islamic Jihad official Jihad Ghannam as having taken up a new post. Ghannam was killed in an Israeli strike on May 9, 2023, at the start of Israel’s Operation Shield and Arrow, which lasted for five days.